


Losers Academy

by Megadeath



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Comic, Gen, Ghosts, Immortal Klaus Hargreeves, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Klaus Hargreeves Needs A Hug, Klaus Hargreeves-centric, M/M, Post-Season/Series 02, References to Drugs, Reginald Hargreeves' A+ Parenting, Spoilers, no beta we die like ben
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-07
Updated: 2021-01-21
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:55:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 27,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27433921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Megadeath/pseuds/Megadeath
Summary: File zero-four. Name given Klaus. Ability to commune with the dead and evocation to compel the dead. The threat level to be determined.“Timeline anomaly number four,” a voice growled from behind, Klaus whipped around to see NotBen walking through a door. “Father has mandated we test your capabilities. This will decide what happens to you.”Pain, unlike anything Klaus had ever felt in his short life, erupted in his chest. Vision dimmed immediately, Klaus managed to look down and saw the bloodied tentacle swinging out from his midsection. A parody of Ben’s Horror. Klaus’s insides spilling on the floor. Another second and he saw nothing at all.***For those who cannot wait for season 3 (like me), I decided to try writing season 3 from the perspective of Klaus.
Relationships: Klaus Hargreeves/David "Dave" Katz
Comments: 14
Kudos: 101





	1. Prologue

Klaus cowered under the desk, bending his agile body into the tiny space. Years of substance abuse and self-neglect rewarding him with the weight of a child on the frame of a six-foot man and a capacity to fold into small spaces. Or maybe that was the yoga.  


Supersonic cracks of bullets echoed through the chambers of the building. Klaus covered his ears trying in vain to shut out the gunshots and the screams of the dead. Screams of the living. It all sounded the same. Stop. Klaus could control it, control it, control it. Flinching again as he heard loud stomping close by.  


Move. You need to move, run. Run Klaus.  


Where are the others?  


Klaus ripped his eyes open, his hands now over his mouth. Silence the breaths of those on the border of life and death. The footsteps were on the other side of the desk. Too late, they would find him in another minute.  


An explosion rocked the building, knocking Klaus forward and driving his forehead into his knees. Air catapulted out from his lungs and all noise was lost except for one high note ringing through his head, a keening sound. Deafening.  


Sounds seeped slowly back; Klaus heard the reckless beating of his heart. A soldier lying face down in front of him, most of his head missing. Klaus blinked, the ghost was looking at the dead body desperately, the face just as grotesque in death. The monster looked at Klaus.  


“You, I will kill you!” transparent bloodstained hands lunged towards him, Klaus scrambled out from under the desk and shuffled back helplessly, spine hitting fallen debris.  


Klaus wasn’t sure how he could understand them when they were missing mouths and vocal cords. What was the use of these powers when fear continuously made him unable to control them? Ghost hands tightened around his ankles, he felt them bruise instantly.  


Klaus kicked the apparition in the mid-section, throwing it off. Klaus clambered up and bolted to the door, unaware of the extent of damage from the blast. For a moment he was suspended in mid-air then he was falling, falling, falling. He slammed painfully on his side and rolled limply down another floor.  


Vision faded black to colour, black to colour. Klaus struggled to his hands and knees but didn’t manage any further before his head was yanked back painfully by his hair, at length now for easy grabbing.  


“We found one of the fuckers.” A deep voice growled from behind.  


“Him? That’s a fucking junkie.” A different voice in front of Klaus, this one had a black gas mask that covered most of his face, red goggles, and a black helmet. Before the other voice holding his hair could reply, Klaus jerked back from a foot slamming into his stomach shoving him back onto the legs of the one holding him.  


“Stop!” The deep voice man suddenly let go of his hair and hands were under his armpits dragging him up.  


“Ugh...” Klaus coughed; spittle dripped down his chin as he swayed upright. Rough hands gripping his upper arms tightly, keeping Klaus from pitching over. “P-pretty sure this is just a big misunderstanding, compañero. I should just leave.” Klaus managed, winded from the battering, wriggling in the hands of his captor as he turned his head to look at one who had stopped the assault.  


Deep Voice was at least forty, caucasian, scarred on the left side of the face, crooked nose. Basic ugly criminal. “Get him in the car. Watch him.” Klaus was shoved forward roughly, almost falling on his face again.  


Gas Mask grabbed him last second and started dragging him out of the building. Klaus missed Ben terribly right then, instinctively throwing his power out to his brother, felt only a missing appendage. Tears sprouted reflexively at the gaping emptiness.  


“Hey man if I were whoever you’re looking for would I be a junkie? You nailed it compadre, wrong guy.” Klaus tried some warble and whine in his voice, tried to sound powerless. Tears adding a nice touch.  


Gas Mask yanked him forward moving him out of the building. Fingers were bruising sleeveless upper arms, jacket lost in the fray when suddenly he twirled around and got slammed onto a brick wall. Klaus was facing his captor, arms pinned, back pressed hard.  


“Err, kinky but is this really the time?” Klaus heart jumped a few notches when Gas Mask pinned Klaus further pressing both bodies close. Suddenly there was a damp cloth over his nose and mouth. Oh. Klaus held his breath and Gas Mask ripped away the cloth and rewarded him with a punch to the gut. Klaus reflexively gasped air, cloth closing around him again. Airways filled with noxious gas.  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone,
> 
> I think I've written about half of this story and I wasn't sure if I should post it. I'm notorious for not finishing works but my hope is that getting some comments keeps me motivated to finish.
> 
> So please comment?


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Could Reginald get any colder? Sure, all he had to do was forget any perceived bond.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since a lot of plot happening off-screen (due to the nature of Klaus being relatively unobservant/uninterested in the greater machinations of the world) I'm thinking of adding some side stories from the other character's point of view when they go off to do whatever they go off to do.

Klaus groaned, body heavy like a torture session with Cha-Cha and Hazel. Actually, worse, like a post-spar session with an angry Luther. Hands trembling and eyes glued shut from tears. Klaus ran his tongue over his teeth, surprised all were in-tact and safe. The basics - remember the basics. 

Deep breath first, lungs expanded and relaxed. Slight pain but probably from bruising. Fingers and toes next, flex, tremble. Not paralysed. Gently gliding fingers over his face, bruised, nose not broken, ears still attached. He rubbed his eyes as gently as he could until he could squint. Not blind. 

Grey and yellow. Everything was grey and yellow. Klaus blinked multiple times, trying to clear his vision. Concrete floor, lots of space.  


Klaus’s body trembled while pushing himself up. Legs splayed in front of him, breathing heavily as he came upright. The black pants he was wearing were torn across the thighs, missing most of the bottom section of his left leg. Dog tags safely around his neck. No buttons on his vest, which hung loosely from his shoulders. Bare chest. Bare feet. Klaus shivered.

Klaus looked around. An empty warehouse, the blurriness cleared, and he realised not just an empty warehouse. He was in a glass box the size of a bedroom in the centre of an empty warehouse. 

Klaus shuffled to the glass plane and hit it with his palm lightly. Nothing happened. Klaus used the glass wall to leverage himself up to standing. Colourful dots danced across his vision, it passed quickly. Klaus looked up, warehouse ceiling. Interestingly the glass cage looked to be on a hook with a chain trailing to the ceiling. 

“Hallo. Hey! Hey! Is anyone out there!” Klaus yelled to the empty warehouse. Minutes passed excruciatingly slowly into hours. Klaus screamed, slammed his hands on the glass and yelled some more and still nothing happened.

Dozing fitfully, roused eventually by a speaker jarring him awake, enough to stand uncertainly. 

“File zero-four. Name given Klaus. Ability to commune with the dead and evocation to compel the dead. Threat level to be determined.”  


Klaus looked up trying to find the speakers, they were well hidden. The voice of all the worst nightmares. 

“Pops… I mean Sir. Reginald Sir, let me out.” Klaus replied, voice shaky, at the speakers. The voice of his childhood.  


“Compose yourself! I am not your father.” Reginal Hargreeves barked and Klaus reflexively stood up straighter, sweat beading on his forehead. 

The sound of chains clanging like they were twisting together echoed loudly in the empty room, the glass cage lifting with each rotation. Klaus darted out as soon as there was enough space between floor and cage then watched the cage lift. It continued to rise until it was flush with the roof. 

“Timeline anomaly number four,” a voice growled from behind, Klaus whipped around to see NotBen walking through a door. “Father has mandated we test your capabilities. This will decide what happens to you.” 

“Oh Ben, I mean NotBen.” Klaus ran his fingers down his face roughly, stressed. “Look, I think we have all just gotten off on the wrong foot.” Klaus brought up his hands placatingly, the universal sign of surrender. “Mon frère, can we just talk about this?” Klaus was using his sweetest voice, one that could sometimes sway his Ben. 

It was incredibility disorientating to see the face of Ben twisted into this angry, intimidating façade. While Ben had been mad at Klaus more than not mad with Klaus in the 17ish years they had been together, never once had Klaus been scared of his own brother, always behind the mad was understanding, patience and love. 

“Please do not speak unless addressed directly and you will refer to me as Number One. Your group has made a rather unfortunate mess of the Academy.” NotBen grimaced, Klaus could see plaster dust in the crevices of his uniform and liberally dusting his black boots. “Rest assured your attempt to destroy our home and cause havoc in our timeline will be contained. You will be assessed and then you will face punishment.” 

“Right, Number One… or is it Zero Zero Dot One? Like, what is our legal name? You know, I never did figure that out.” Klaus mumbled nervously; a low growl prompted him back on track. “We have all just really buggered it all up, you know? We were not trying to destroy our house, this is just…wait. Assess me? What does that mean?” Klaus looked around wildly, he needed to get behind NotBen and out the door. 

“It means that you will fight me at your full strength, or you will be contained until you fight.” 

“Wait, please Ben. I am no threat, none, nothing at all. I can’t do shit you know? This is my full strength, love.” Klaus was completely panicking now. NotBen wanted to fight? With the Horror…? Major screwed. 

“I am not Ben and I suppose I will see.” NotBen quipped as he shot out towards Klaus like a bullet. No time to think, Klaus reacted completely on instinct, distilled by a childhood of vigilantism and later through survival on the streets and in a historical war. Blood rushing up his legs, Klaus feinted to the right and then jerked into a roll which he managed to propel back to standing by sheer force of his fear.  


Klaus was zig zagging and running to the doors he had seen NotBen walk through. Pain seared around his calf; Klaus screamed. Klaus’s legs gave out as he started to get dragged back from where he had been running from. Looking down, he saw one of NotBen’s tentacles rip into his left leg, smearing blood on the floor as they pulled. 

Suddenly he was viciously yanked into the air by the interdimensional tentacle. Hanging upside down, he watched NotBen walk towards him, chest and stomach open to an inscrutable darkness. 

“Ben please-” Klaus was cut off abruptly as he was slammed to the floor, immediately losing feeling across his entire body and blacking out for a second. Gasping, he blinked away the darkness, body numb.

“Stop talking. Fight. Conjure the dead.” NotBen yelled. 

Why did no one ever understand that these death powers were not so straightforward? 

Klaus coughed, blood dripping out with each cough. Shakily, he pushed himself up to sit, feeling coming back in painful prickles. His leg burned and throbbed to the beat of his heart, quickly and unrelentingly, blood seeping from the ripped wounds. Conjure the dead. Sure. Attack NotBen. He felt his powers slip away before he could even get a good feel for it, grappling for the powers left him frustrated.  


His head whipped to the side as NotBen jumped on top of Klaus and slammed his fist across his cheek, slamming his face to his side. Klaus reflexively wrenched his knee up to the soft in-between of NotBrother’s legs, falling back with a pained yell. Klaus tried to get up and felt his wounded leg give, each movement pushing blood outside of his body. Flailing his arms to keep upright. Looking away from NotBen, he hopped towards the door grunting in pain. Hopefully, the exit. 

Pain, unlike anything Klaus had ever felt in his short life erupted in his chest. Vision dimmed immediately, Klaus managed to look down and saw the bloodied tentacle swinging out from his midsection. A parody of Ben’s Horror. Klaus’s insides spilling on the floor. Another second and he saw nothing at all. 

***

It was bright. Too bright to keep his eyes closed anymore. 

Klaus opened his eyes and looked at the greyscale landscape. A sky which should be blue, various shades of grey, fluffy white clouds dancing in the wind.

Klaus sat up, noting the lack of any discomfort of his body. He stretched while standing and started walking from this grassy hill to the dirt path. There was a lake in the distance, Klaus shrugged and wandered in that direction. It did not take long to stumble upon a picnic set up in the grass. Champagne, little fancy sandwiches.

Klaus heard the sigh behind, and he turned slowly. A small girl, long black hair, almond shaped eyes, dressed for a fancy party, hands on hips glared at him. Little bow in her hair. 

“I am actually waiting for guests. This isn’t a good time.” She snapped. 

“Sorry.” Klaus answered automatically and then paused. “I’m not coming here on purpose sweetheart!” Klaus huffed and then watched the small girl settle onto the patterned picnic mat. She took a sip of her drink. “Aren’t you underage?” Klaus asked irritated. 

The girl just side eyed him. “You cannot be here.” 

“Can… Then. Can you put me with Dave and Ben?” Klaus asked softly, hopefully. 

“No.” Her eyes were hard, face set in determination. Not an ounce of sympathy. 

Klaus’s heart plummeted to his feet. He stepped to the other side of the girl and sat down on the grass sightly away from the picnic. Dropped his head to his hands and curled into himself. 

“You’re not supposed to be here.” Her voice relented a little, Klaus didn’t bother looking at the girl. “You cannot keep dropping by here.”  
“I don’t even know how I got here.” Klaus responded dryly, trying to hold himself together. 

“You still need to stop.” She answered, voice softer. Klaus looked back at her. The girl was watching him like a hawk. “I’m sending you back.”

“Why won’t you let me see them?” Klaus finally burst out as he felt himself fall backwards, through the grass and light. 

***

Gasping, Klaus snapped his eyes open. Darkness. Shooting his arms forward, they hit a malleable barrier. Plastic? Eyes wild, Klaus tried looking through the black panicking slightly. Adjusting to the darkness, he could make out light through a zipper track an inch above his face. Pressing fingers into the crack, he ripped the plastic open and sat up. 

Klaus pushed the plastic off his body and ran his hands down his naked chest, his unbroken midsection. Blood, pools of it, all over him, underneath him, thick vestiges of internal human matter dripping off the table onto the floor. Klaus looked around, he was in a morgue and operating room, some sort of morbid mix. Currently dressed in a body bag on a metal table which was sticking out of a drawer. A human sized metal drawer, a metal coffin. Klaus looked away quickly and felt for his dog tags. They weren’t around his neck, his hand trembled.  


The room was a mess, medical equipment lying around, pools of bandages, soaked through with blood in multiple trash cans. Klaus assumed corpses might be in the other drawers, but he didn’t linger on the thought. 

His breath was unsteady, shuttering, heartbeat feral. Klaus took a deep breath and held it for a ten second count. Just like rehab, remember to breathe. Panicking slightly less, he pushed the body bag further off his body. He was completely naked; his stomach was sore but no gaping hole from having a monster rip through him. Better not think about that. 

His wounded leg unfortunately, was still a bloody mess. It was torn up badly, skin dangling at places. Klaus swallowed and looked away. Ignore it, right now it would not kill him. Probably? Klaus paused. Kill him… die. Can he die? He has been mostly sober for three consecutive years, the longest being sober since he was fifteen, he could not have hallucinated that. Maybe. For the second time.  


Never mind. Not the time, he had siblings to save and all that jazz. He manoeuvred his legs off the table. The action leaving him winded, pain shooting unbearably from his leg. It also allowed a coagulating pool of blood and other matter from the body bag to splash onto the floor. Was that an organ? Klaus flinched looking away and took another deep breath, closing his eyes for a second. 

Dropping from the table onto the floor on his good leg, hopped to an open medical cabinet. Found a compression bandage and wrapped his left calf as best as he could, ignoring how the blood soaked through browning the white bandage instantly. Pulled out the plastic storage box he had seen from under the table. Score, solider clothes. The same type as he had seen on the men who had nabbed him.  


How many dead soldiers were in here? Klaus swallowed and looked around, so far it had been rather empty. Klaus didn’t question his luck as he shrugged into the oversized pants. He pulled the belt tightly and realised there wasn’t a hole that would fit his waist. Grabbing a scalpel from the operating tray he created a new hole to keep the belt in place and hopefully keep the pants on his damn hips. Klaus pocketed the scalpel. He didn’t bother with a shirt and just zipped the jacket to his throat, it was bloody but the black covered it well.  


Shoes… where were the shoes? Shit there were no shoes.

Klaus looked around the cabinets and tables, medical equipment was strewn around slightly haphazardly. Like there had been an emergency operation in here before everyone vacated. Klaus rummaged blindly for anything useful, found painkillers and pocketed the oxycodone. Then pulled the bottle back out and dry swallowed three pills before putting it in his pocket. 

The pain free body he had felt in the other place was no longer with him. Right then everything hurt, from his tiniest toes to the tips of his hair. Klaus was kind of sure this didn’t count as relapsing. Well, moving was more important than relapsing anyway. Sober was extraordinarily overrated, even more so without Ben. Survive first, thrive later right?

A gas mask and goggles had been shoved in a drawer. Klaus looped them onto his belt just in case he needed to hide his face. Where were his dog tags, where did the bastards put it? He ripped drawers out of their homes and searched, panting painfully. He found them in near the door, thrown over the lamp. 

David Katz. 

Klaus paused regained some composure and then looked for exits. A door out, could lead anywhere but most likely to danger. The clothes would protect a little, but it was bloodied and he was shoeless. Someone would notice quicker than desired. 

There was a vent to the top right of the room, Klaus was confident he was skinny enough to squeeze through there. Huffing, he climbed on top of the table below the vent and used the scalpel to unscrew the corner screws. Once the panel was out, looking at the hole, it was small. He would need to get in backwards to keep the illusion of his escape and cap the metal panel back into the vent opening.  


Klaus carefully lowered his head on his hands on the table and lifted his legs up into a half handstand, normally an easy task, currently however arms were trembling with the weight. Klaus was running on fumes, less than fumes, running on the power of hopes and dreams. Hooking his feet on the entrance he tried to slide them back and almost screamed. The edge of the mental vent sliding against his bandaged leg. Holding back both tears and screams he lifted his left leg higher before continuing to push his legs through and followed with his butt, wriggling backwards, using the wall to push himself further in. He grabbed the panel with one hand and managed to squeeze all the way in and pulled the panel back. Klaus couldn’t screw it back on from this position and just hoped it would hold. 

Once he was in, he almost pushed the panel back out to fling himself out. Claustrophobia pounded across his head like a migraine, darkness creeped around the edges. Don’t panic, don’t panic, don’t panic. Slowly pushed backwards and just kept pushing. Don’t think, just move, don’t think. 

Ben, where are you? 

Klaus was leaving behind a trail of sweat which was staring to mix with blood which was seeping from his clothes and wounds as he took any random turn as he encountered them, not having the mental capacity to keep track of the turns. He passed a few vent openings underneath, but they looked like the dropped into rooms that were not any safer than the morgue. 

Until below a slat grid panel there was a warehouse and he stopped. Looking down a tank was centred in the room but it was difficult to see any details. Plunged in darkness with only slivers of light streaming from the slits high on the slides of the wall, small windows. It must have been night. Klaus paused trying to listen for any sound, nothing stirred and decided to keep going. 

Another slat gird panel allowed him to peer into another warehouse and this one made him smile. Five’s angry threats were being screeched out through the vocal cords of a thirteen-year-old with the vocabulary of an old drunken pirate on drugs. 

Klaus pushed on the vent opening and then paused. He definitely hadn’t thought this through, the panel couldn’t be unscrewed from this side. Damnit. Klaus twisted onto his back and shuffled the way he had come from to align his feet with the opening. Kicking the panel with his uninjured heel. Klaus hit his head on the vent wall in shock from the pain coursing up his leg. Un-shoed the metal grate was unyielding. What other choice was there? Klaus continued to slam a vulnerable foot on the panel.

“Hey what the fuck is making that noise? Let me out of this place! Right now. I demand to speak to Reginald.” Five shouted.

Klaus wriggled back to the panel and tried to push it off. It yielded a little. There wasn’t enough room in the vent to get any leverage on the panel, it couldn’t be unscrewed or pushed off. Klaus growled exasperated, dropping chin to the back of hands and watched Five. 

Five looked wrecked. Academy uniform grimy, tie askew looking completely disconcerted. This was unlike the normal polished visage; it was most likely driving the boy insane. 

“File zero-five. Name given Five. Ability of teleportation and chronokinesis. Threat level high. To be imprisoned indefinitely. Prep for move.” Reginald Hargreeves clipped, precise way of talking lambasted over the speakers.

“You fucking bastard. Where is the rest of my family? Come and talk to me, I can help you secure this timeline, just let them go.” Five’s voice was dropped low, held the promise of extreme violence and hatred. Klaus shivered. 

The lights went out and he could barely make out the figure of Five inside the glass cage. There was a dim glow to his cage from the high windows. Klaus wondered if something was preventing Five from teleporting away. 

Klaus pouted at the vent and then looked up and had to stifle a scream. A headless naked body was crawling forward, followed from the morgue? Arms dragging the body forward, thumps of the dead flesh hitting the vent as it moved. Klaus closed his eyes and concentrated. Everyone was in trouble and maybe Klaus was insignificant enough to murder outright but his siblings would never stop fighting.  


Hargreeves, NotBen and company would kill them eventually, probably from sheer annoyance. 

It seemed unlikely his siblings would be given second chances considering Ben. 

“Okay chap, how about you give me a hand?” Klaus joked as he looked up and imagined as hard as he could pulling ghost soldier’s arms through the bottom panel of the vent, a flicker of cold threaded around clenched hands, weak but enough. The ghost stumbled as his arms went sliding through the bottom of the vent, Klaus imagined the headless ghost was probably shocked. Angling the scalpel through the panel slit he compelled the ghost to grab the instrument. Then coordinated the unscrewing of the panel. 

Klaus was sweating profusely, dim blue streaks of power flickering on and off, coloured dots danced on the edges of his vision. Klaus ignored his quivering body, well versed in pushing past limits. His power suddenly flickered out completely and the ghost vanished along with it. Scalpel falling to the ground with a tiny thud. 

“Okay seriously, whoever is sneaking around on the roof, get the fuck over here. Let’s chat.” Five’s voice bellowed across the room.  


“Wait, shit no...” Klaus cursed. Two of the screws on one side had been undone, the other two remained attached. Klaus shrugged and beared as much weight on the open panel with his back as he could manoeuvre and heard a loud crack. 

Unprepared Klaus screamed falling through the broken panel. A few seconds of wind rushing around his body until he slammed onto the ground. Dazed and twitching tried to move. Five’s voice drifting in and out of his hearing. 

Basic check…again, maybe he could just die again and come back a little bit healed. New pain emanating from his ribs was taking precedence over all the other pain in his body. Struggling, Klaus contorted onto elbows and almost threw up. Ribs not feeling quite right.  


“Hey solider, you still alive?” Five asked, voice bored. 

“Ow… Is that anyway to greet your queen in shining armour?” Klaus coughed turning to face his brother, not seeing anything in the darkness or blurred vision. 

“Klaus!? What the hell are you doing?” Fear tinged his brother’s voice. 

“Thought it was obvious, trying to save you.” Klaus joked grimacing, shakily getting to his knees. Don’t pass out. Don’t pass out.  


“Attempting suicide makes for a terrible rescue.” Five replied voice low, edging towards soft. “There’s a lever near the door, pull it down. It should get me out of this cage.” 

“On it bràthair.” Klaus mumbled, one arm wrapped around fragile ribs, crawling on his good leg towards the door, slowly. Klaus leaned heavily on the wall, eyes closed, trying to catch his breath. The last 24 hours had been an absolute shitshow. Klaus slid down the wall, almost lying flat, grabbed the lever and pulled down.

Darkness followed.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What are people but memories of past experiences? 
> 
> Where do memories go if you lose them?

“We need a hospital.” 

“They will be on top of us in seconds if we go to a hospital.” 

“He will die if we don’t do anything.”

“He will die if they catch up with us. Then we will all, also die.” 

“I’m not about to let him die Five!”

“I didn’t say we should let him die Diego!”

“Pretty sure that’s what you implied.” 

“Just give me a second to think!” 

“We don’t have a minute to think! We need to do something now before he hemorrhages.” 

“If you had even one fucking brain cell and decided to forward think for just once in your life, we wouldn’t be in this situation right at this fucking moment Luther.” 

“Five calm down, that isn’t helping.”

Klaus let the noise wash over, picking the voices of brothers and sisters and slowly squinting eyes open. Lying on his back across Diego’s legs, an arm was cradling his head. Luther gently keeping his legs still. Klaus shifted a little and saw darkness outside the window by Diego’s head. They were moving, in a car. 

Klaus moved his head further to his left to see the top of Alison’s head and he assumed Five and Vanya were at the front of the car, too short to see the tops of their heads. Chest blossomed with warmth. They were alive. 

“Hey,” Klaus croaked. “Don’t fight over little ol’ me. There’s enough to go around.” Klaus tried for sounding crude but came off sounding more like death. Silence followed the proclamation, Five had twisted in the front and was looking back at Klaus. Alison followed suit, even Vanya angled the interior mirror to see Klaus while she drove. 

Klaus felt a bit like a celebrity and a two headed fish. 

“Shit bro, you are so fucked up. What the hell man?” Diego asked, gently turning Klaus’s head to lay straight. Klaus was then lifted up enough that he was slightly vertical, pain shooting through his torso. “Drink.” Diego commanded; water bottle pushed to lips.

Klaus drank greedily, Diego pulled it away before he had too much. 

“Slow down.” Diego muttered, hand patting his upper arm lightly where it was wrapped to hold Klaus up. 

“Okay, this is what we’re going to do. It’s about 1am, we’re going to find a home-based medical practice. We’re going to do this stealthy, get the doctor and get Klaus patched up quickly and then get out.” Five ordered, then finished up with, “Somebody hold Diego this time when they stick him.” 

“Screw you.” Diego replied, face twisted into a frown. 

“I’m fine, just give me a minute and I’ll be good to go.” Klaus pushed himself up a little further, noting how his pants seemed to have turned into shorts in his absence. He went pale at the same time, pain ricocheting everywhere, something sharp pressing into the delicate flesh of his torso. “Oww…” 

“Stop moving Klaus.” Luther said, large hand over his uninjured ankle. 

“What happened to my pants?” Klaus wheezed settling back down on both brothers with Diego’s help. 

“Five wanted to check how damaged you were before we moved you. We didn’t want to break anything else by accident. What happened to you Klaus?” Allison asked, voice light but tight. Upset.

“Just some light penetration.” Klaus sighed.

“What?” Luther asked, sincerely. 

Klaus giggled, closing his eyes. 

Darkness again. 

***  
Gunshots. Klaus woke up startled, blinded. Shouting voices. Diego? 

There was a bright light shining above, Klaus felt groggy. Jerking arms above his head, he tried to stop the blinding light, arm slammed against something metal, it crashed noisily as the light disappeared. Blinking away the burn of the glare, reality floated slowly to his brain. 

He was on a metal table again, déjà vu. Klaus looked around, this time it looked like an operating theatre but minimalistic, tile flooring, wooden cabinets, it was bit more of a back room looking place. Medical computers were beeping beside the table, cables weaving on the floor to an overloaded power board. Small stage lights were now on the floor shattered, swept off the small table they had been sitting on. 

A door was slightly ajar and there were no windows at all. 

Intravenous lines were suspended in the air from a plastic bag, connecting to a cannula his elbow. Klaus looked at the bag, it was clear, not too yellow, or red so most likely some sort of saline or medical solution, rather than any blood product. Not feeling too groggy probably meant it wasn’t painkillers either. Klaus well versed in his many hospital stays, kept pressure on the needle entry and pulled it out gently, keeping slight pressure on the needle puncture. Sitting up, the pummelling body pain was slightly dulled. There was a lot of bandages on him, chest and leg had the largest ones wrapped tightly. He was dressed in cotton boxers with stripes on them, fortunately dog tags sitting peacefully around his neck. 

There was a noise, small, like a racoon. Klaus twisted around to look behind, there was a woman wearing surgical scrubs huddled in the corner behind a cabinet and the wall. Gunshots noises barrelled from outside the room, Klaus reflexively shielded his head with his arms. Pain didn’t follow, so he carefully rolled off the table and squatted on the ground, slowly crawling his way to the only other living person around. 

“So… ah, hi I’m Klaus. Bit noisy,” Klaus waved his arms in the direction of the only exit to the room, trying not to pull too hard on injuries or bandages. 

The woman in surgical scrubs looked paralysed, eyes wide and gloved hands over her mouth. Klaus was familiar with that look. Catatonia. 

Suddenly a body slammed through the door. Gas masks and red goggles, but they didn’t get far before two knives came flying in skewering them through the neck. They pitched forward gurgling, blood spraying dramatically across the walls and floor. The body buckled brutally, smashing hard against the tile. 

Klaus and ScrubLady both flinched backwards. Klaus grabbed the wrist of the terrified woman and tried to get them moving to the exit, however his tugging didn’t get the corresponding movement by the person huddled in the corner. 

“We need to go now. More of them will be here in seconds.” Klaus whispered frantically, “If you don’t move, I’m leaving without you.” 

There was no response. Klaus sighed loudly, head dropping forward as he squeezed his eyes shut melodramatically. What would Ben do? Turning to the immovable body, Klaus slapped them hard across the face, her face whipped to side with a loud crack. Well, he wasn’t Ben. ScrubLady yelled, eyes focusing on Klaus and hand moving to feel bruised face. 

“Shh! Sorry, no time for a breakdown ma belle. We wait to do those when the bullets are not an imminent threat. Most of the time anyway.” Klaus whispered while grabbing her wrist again and tugging, this time she moved with him, getting to their feet, and sneaking to the door.

Before Klaus could even look out the door, another body ran into the room, gas masks and red goggles. Klaus backed up, trying in vain to get behind the door and out of sight of the masked soldier. They had their gun raised, facing the door which whipped towards Klaus and ScrubLady. The gun was suddenly facing their way, he heard sniffling behind him. Klaus raised his hands in surrender. 

Another masked body pushed into the room, they were moving backwards and shooting. The first mask man joined the new person in shooting out the door. There was a moment of silence before a horde of bullets inexplicably flung themselves into the surgery room, embedding into the soldiers and the walls – floor - table. 

Klaus dropped to the floor, hands over his head, with an unintelligible shout as sparks shot off everywhere, he hoped ScrubLady had followed suit. Black boots ran into the room, Klaus jerked his head up to see the non-mask, non-goggled head of Diego. 

“Good you’re awake. Time to go.” Diego said, blood running freely down his temple and hand outstretched. 

“No shit. Where is everyone?” Klaus replied grabbing his brother’s hand and looking back. 

“Not here.” Diego replied pointlessly. 

ScrubLady was on the floor, eyes wide unstaring. Bullet hole clear on her forehead. Her ghost was watching over the body pitifully. Klaus swallowed, frowning, but didn’t get more than a few seconds to look at the lady before his brother was dragging him out the door. 

Favouring his good leg, breathing shallowly and hand balanced on the wall Klaus tried to keep up with his brother’s pace down the corridor. An underground corridor by the lack of any natural light, he could see stairs up ahead, Diego was already out of view as dead bodies dropped to the foot of the stairs. More soldiers. 

Klaus panted, fingers pressing hard onto the wall, body trembling and trying and catch enough air to keep moving. 

Diego’s head popped around the wall, “Klaus. Move.” 

“Working on it, mi hermano.” Klaus grunted annoyed out of breath, spots dancing across his vision.

“Shit.” Diego was beside him in another second and then the world turned upside down. Pain slammed through his ribs as he was unceremoniously lifted off the ground and thrown over his brother’s shoulder. Face squished against his brothers back, hair flying around, his necklace swinging wildly and his legs clamped tightly so he couldn’t thrash. He punched his brother’s ass in retaliation. 

“Diego!” Klaus screeched, pain flaring from the bent over position. “Let me down or fucking carry me properly like the princess I am!” 

“I need my hands Klaus, just don’t fucking move.” Diego growled with his batman voice.

“Move. Don’t move. Mixed messages papacito.” Klaus managed to mutter, grip tight on his brothers’ jacket. 

Diego ignored him, running up the stairs. Each step making the pain buzz across Klaus’s body, if he wasn’t let down soon he was going to throw up, hopefully all over Diego’s jacket. Bullets whizzing bending around Diego and Klaus in unnatural lines. Solider bodies falling around them in the hail of bullets. The top of the stairs brought them to a more normal looking suburban house, it didn’t take long to crash through the quaint living room to the garage where Diego abruptly threw Klaus into the back seat of a car, door slamming seconds after. Diego was in the driver’s seat a heartbeat later, the car was suddenly purring and then reversed straight into the metal roller door, smashing through. 

Klaus screamed as he was thrown off the backseat to the floor of the car and glass rained all around him, the shriek of twisting metal reverberating in his ears. Then wind, silence and the car moving. 

“Stay down Klaus. They’re right behind us.” Diego yelled just as the torrent of bullets began again. 

Klaus wasn’t sure he could move even if he wanted to, flashes flaming off the metal of the car in intervals. Diego probably couldn’t keep all the bullets away and also drive like the madman he currently was, rocketing at an insane speed whilst yanking the car left and right like a professional skier. 

Klaus was shaking from adrenalin, fear, anger, everything. He should probably do something. Ben would have been yelling at him to help if he was here. What exactly was he supposed to do though? On shaking arms, crawling back up the seat, he left a trail of blood. Had he reopened something? Or maybe that was all the new cuts from the glass. Trying to be careful as he was mostly naked but there was glass everywhere.

Klaus popped his head over the backseat to look out the back window of the car. There was no back window, bullets had smashed the plane of glass to pieces. There were two cars following them at dizzying speeds. Bullets were flying from the cars like a swarm of locusts. Klaus dropped his head back after a microsecond look. 

“Klaus, what the fuck are you doing! I can’t keep their bullets off us, just stay down!” There was panic in Diego’s voice. 

Klaus could do this. Klaus could do something. Klaus took a deep breath and felt deep within himself until he found the cold breath of death. A weak energy twisted like the roots of a tree, dark and bright and beautiful and always dying. He pulled, wrapping the cold energy around stiff hands and popped his head back above the backseat of the car and conjured as much of the dead that could be held in his mind. Up and up and up and suddenly, the bullets stopped. 

The cars chasing them were swerving, one hit the roadside curb and flipped graphically, fragmenting on impact. The other spun out of control slamming violently against a tree on the road verge. 

Klaus watched the ghosts turn from the cars, the thirty or so conjured turned to the direction of Diego’s getaway car and then faded away. Klaus shuddered, gasping tasting a trickle of blood that ran into his mouth. Klaus wiped it away disgusted. 

“What? What just happened.” Diego was slowing the car down, turned to look back at the catastrophic wreckage behind them and then forward, continuing to drive. “Bro…” Diego let the sentence die, seeming to lose his thread of conversation. 

Klaus moved carefully, clambering over the centre console to the front passenger seat and sat down gingerly. 

“I’m covered in glass.” Klaus complained sulkily and started pulling fragments out of his forearms. 

“We’re alive though?” Diego looked contrite as he shrugged, looking quickly at Klaus. 

“Barely. Again. This is turning into a dreadful habit.” Klaus winced as he pulled out a particularly large piece of glass from his thigh and then pressed his hand over the wound to stop it from seeping blood. 

“When we come across a parking strip. We will swap cars. Best we keep moving, not sure how long before they find us again. I’ll get you some clothes, bandages.” Diego groused.

“Snacks and alcohol! I’m hungry.” Klaus suggested brightly, perking up. 

“You look better already.” Diego said, eyes travelling across Klaus’s body. 

“It’s weird when you do that. I feel like an insect,” Klaus gazed at his brother and smirked playfully “Or a lover.” Klaus stretched like a cat, ignoring how it pulled on his stiches and the dull pain which followed, Diego was right though, ribs felt whole not ripping into defenceless flesh, calf pulsing but the muscles feeling like they had slot back into place. Klaus rested his skull on the headrest, eyes drifting shut as his brother scoffed indignantly. 

The car travelled for a while longer and Klaus dozed, only waking when it pulled to a stop at a back-alley parking lot, empty of any persons. Klaus watched sleepily but curiously as his brother got out of the car and surreptitiously jacked the car they were parked next to, sliding into the driver’s seat and hot wiring it immediately. It rumbled alive. 

Klaus stumbled out of the wrecked car and limped over to their new car, sliding into the passenger seat.

“Such a delinquent,” Klaus said gleefully. 

“Keep this baby warm, I’ll be back soon. If I’m not back in 10 minutes, just start driving to the coast.” Diego grimaced and then hopped away from the car, bolted around the corner before Klaus could speak. 

“The coast?” Klaus asked nobody. With nothing better to do, he rummaged through all the drawers of the car. Netting a few packets of mints of which he shoved a handful in his mouth immediately, tissues that he tossed in the backseat, coins which he would have pocketed…had he had any pockets on the presumably someone else’s underwear he was wearing. Round metal disks that had artwork and labels reminiscent of music tapes. He scanned them and found he didn’t recognise anything, odd. A bunch of car related papers in the glove box, the car was devoid of anything interesting. Except the dashboard, that looked like a futuristic star trek flat screen, when peering closely there were faded numbers and words. 

Something flickered in the corner of his eye and Klaus looked up startled. A man with a caved in head was at one of the dirty corners that led to a tiny alleyway off the parking lot. Klaus looked at the ground of the ghost’s feet and while filled with debris, mostly rubbish, it didn’t look like there was a body lying around. Still looked like relatively fresh ghost. They always looked more human close to when they passed, time twisted them to something less recognizable if they didn’t bother passing on. 

A few years of sobriety and Ben’s constant harassment meant he was better at dealing with the dead. At least when he wasn’t panicking. 

Whatever was happening with that dude though was not his problem. Klaus slid lower in his seat, cutting off sight to the parking lot, hoping that ghost didn’t notice. Without Ben’s grounding presence Klaus itched to have anything in his system to just ease the intensity of everything. 

“You can see me?” 

“Christ in chimney!” Klaus yelled twisting to his window, jerking in surprise. The dead man was looking at him sombrely. “No, I can’t, and I can’t help you.” Klaus waved his arms to the sky, “Just go into the light man.” 

“I need to save my daughter please!” The intensity of the voice, the ghost was getting louder, body phasing into the car, caved in skull dripping brain matter and blood continuously onto its shoulder. Klaus started scrambling back over the gear box and then he felt the cold seep into his legs, slam right into his chest and then he wasn’t in control anymore. 

I need to help my daughter. Klaus thought in a haze as he opened the car door and walked out. He was moving, pain disconnected like it was part of a memory, through an alleyway, stepping over debris in bare feet. Klaus walked to a dull green door and wretched in open, stumbling up the narrow steps into a mostly barren loft. The bed was overturned, kitchen paraphernalia scattered over the floor, a body of a man on the floor, head caved in, he ignored it in favour of the other person in the room. The girl was bleeding on the floor, the pallor of death awash her face. Shallow rise and fall of the small chest betraying death. Klaus stumbled over the body and to the landline quickly dialling 911. 

“I need an ambulance.” Klaus stated and rattled off an address and dropped the handset, ignoring the tinny reply then collapsed on his hands and knees, sweat appearing around his body and immediately threw up some bile and mints. 

What the fuck. What the fuck. What the fuck. Klaus stared eyes wide at the mess on the floor and then turned around furious. The ghost of the caved-head man was standing by his daughter. 

“What did you do?” Klaus shrieked, hand over his chest trembling. 

“Thankyou.” The ghost replied. 

“No. No, no, no. I didn’t give you permission to do that.” Klaus said, eyes large, tugging on his hair, the ghost ignored him in favour of watching his daughter. The sound of sirens interrupted the one-sided conversation, Klaus glared once more for good measure at the ghost and rushed back down the stairs on unsteady legs, heavily relying on the uninjured one. 

As he took a step out the front door he was swung around abruptly and shoved against the wall, face first, more gently than he would have expected all things considering. Craning his head to the side he could see red goggles and gas mask. Damn. Klaus jerked his elbow back aiming for the stomach, his arm was caught easily and pulled back behind him. 

“Peacenik?” A surprised voice asked, the masked man hesitated, the only warning Klaus got before the pain was a soft “sorry about this,” then a swift kick to the back of his knees by the solider had him buckling until they were both squatting. 

Klaus yelled and a gloved hand released his arm to cover his mouth, muffling his screams. Suddenly there was a sharp pain at his bandaged calf, Klaus looked down to see the soldier’s fingers digging into a cut in his calf. A wound the solider had made with a blade that was on the floor after being used. This was all new levels of fuckery. 

Klaus was so shocked he didn’t even struggle as the fingers seemed to be scrounging around inside his calf, his life was suddenly on track to be a sequel to the worst horror movie. Then the pain hit double time as the fingers pulled out with a small metal capsule with a little light that was blinking. Klaus groaned unable to do much else, the solider suddenly let go of Klaus and dropped the metal capsule into the sewer drain. 

Then stood up and yelled outside the alley, “Hey team, he ran to the east! Follow the tracker!” 

Klaus was too stunned to do much but sit on the cement alleyway, mostly naked, bleeding slowly from everywhere and staring at his… rescuer or captor? 

The goggles and mask came off and he was staring at… No. That wasn’t possible. Klaus shut his eyes, rubbed them furiously and then looked again. No change. 

“I had a feeling I’d see you again one day.” David ‘Dave’ Katz said. 

Klaus’s heart stopped. Restarted and then stopped again, Klaus doubled over coughing, tears burning fiercely and then hit his chest to get his heart going again. Wiping the tears away from his face, he stared at Dave. Older than when he was twenty-three just a week ago, fifty years ago. Older than when he died in his arms at twenty-eight and beautiful. There was grey around the temples, his jaw was defined, and he was bulkier, still beautiful. 

“No time to explain.” Dave said as he shrugged out of his jacket, leaving him in a plain black shirt that stretched around a very defined chest and bent down to place the jacket around Klaus’s shoulders while pulling them up to their feet swiftly. 

The sirens were almost at the alley by how loud they were. Without any preamble Dave grabbed Klaus underneath his thighs and across his back, carrying bridal style and the tips of his ears and entire face blazed red. They were suddenly moving, fast. Out of the alley back into the parking lot to where there was no Diego and no jacked car. 

Not that he even got a chance to digest that information before he was bundled into a black van with blacked out windows and Dave reversed out of the parking lot and started driving.

“What…?” Klaus asked unsure, heart beating too fast. Some sort of hope flaring in his chest.

“We met in 1963. Your tried to get me to join your cult, I joined the marines instead.” Dave began dryly like Klaus might have forgotten. “You said I would die in the A Shau Valley in 1968 holding hill 689. Well, that lead to some interesting conversations with some interesting people and now I work for the Bureau of oddities and time, the military branch.”

“The government’s time military,” Klaus parroted blankly, “Do you mean the timy-wimy people…ugh… what did Diego call them… the Commiseration?” 

“Well, I am currently undercover in the Temps Commission.” Dave answered with a smile, eyes flicking quickly to Klaus as he drove through the city calmly. “You were right by the way. Dune is my favourite book.” Dave mentioned offhand. 

“We…” Klaus swallowed. “We never met in Vietnam, did we?” he kept his eyes downward holding the dog tags resting on his chest. Dave was alive.

“No.” Dave replied lightly, clearly no baggage relating to Vietnam and Klaus. 

This was insane. This is what insanity looks like Klaus thought. He had been committed for schizophrenia a few years ago (in the original timeline) and even drugged in a straitjacket, he had felt saner. Ghosts with their mind-numbing screaming that burst ear drums made more sense. That his memories existed in a vacuum away from the concept and reality of time, was an absolute mindfuck. Five and his tenuous relationship to saneness made much more sense now. 

Klaus sighed, heartfelt. Sad and happy. Dave was alive. 

“Now what?” Klaus asked, feeling like he had been moving from one pressure cooker to another since waking.

“Well, I need to you to go with my partner while I go back to my team, otherwise things are going to get pretty hairy for me.” David said sincerely, “will you?” turned to Klaus with a dazzling smile. All straight white teeth and crinkly eyes. 

Klaus squirmed. This was a bad idea. He should definitely find his siblings. Answer no.

“Yeah,” Klaus breathed, head bobbing softly. Ben would have smacked him, and it would have been well deserved. 

“Well this is your stop then.” Dave stopped the car and the door slid open; Klaus turned to face the detective from the motel all those years…days ago. 

Well shit.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Respite and run.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Klaus will be in pain. A lot, honestly for most of the story. 
> 
> Comedy writers impress me so much, it's shockingly hard to write good comedy.

Klaus was left to his own devices inside the apartment. Eudora Patch as she introduced herself, led them into the place and then disappeared to work on some files in the front room. Next to the only door out of the tenth-floor apartment. 

First thing he did was raid the kitchen and stuff his face with whatever he could find (tiny complimentary chips, chocolates, and biscuits) while washing it down with herbal green tea. Then he snooped in every room, it was all devoid of personal paraphernalia, only finding bibles, towels, and hotel art. The only non-hotel stuff in this place was the bloody tracks and bloody fingerprints smears Klaus left everywhere and Lady cop’s files in the front room. Klaus didn’t bother to try and figure out what she was doing. 

He wandered to the bathroom and decided this was the best opportunity to properly clean up. It had been an incredibly traumatising 48 hours that deserved a bubble bath.  


His siblings were somewhere, at the coast or was that Diego code for something? What was even at the coast? The ocean. Ben would have loved that. 

NotBen was a murderer, well Klaus’s Ben had always been a murderer to be fair but not a controlled assassin-y murderer, that was very not the same thing and he killed Klaus, that was a difficult pill to swallow. Even as a different version, it was still Ben. Ben was a sarcastic bitch but underneath, kind. Klaus splashed some water on his face and started rubbing the grime off his fingers. 

Dave… was alive. Not his Dave but a version of his Dave. Alive. Older. Still working for the military. There were apparently two time agencies in this world, the Temps Commission, and the Bureau of Oddities and Time. Klaus started chewing on his freshly clean fingernail, all this information… well honestly, he had no idea what to do with all this information. That was Five’s domain. 

What was his Pops doing? Clearly the mask-goggle people were from the Temps Commission, they were running about for dear old Hargreeves. So what did that mean exactly? Klaus splashed his hands in the water again, watching the water overflow and start to puddle on the bathroom floor. Tinged red. The bandages he had stripped off were bundled on the middle of the floor, gladly soaking the incoming bath water. The crimson deepening. 

Klaus slapped his cheeks gently, grabbed more soap and ran his fingers through his hair, scrubbing his scalp, honestly, none of what he knows makes any difference. The only question here is what should he do? His siblings cannot live in this timeline if they are constantly being chased about, so do they kill dear old pops and all the people following them around? Get a briefcase and leave this timeline? 

The timeline with an alive Ben. 

Not his Ben, Klaus-murder-friendly NotBen. 

The timeline with an alive Dave. The timeline with an alive Dave who is age appropriate and incredibly sexy. 

Well, he had a great run with his siblings, maybe it was time to start a new life here in multiple Time-Agencies future. 

A timeline where ghosts could apparently possess him, not just a Ben thing. Or was that always an available option and was somehow related to his untapped potential? Plus-one-point for getting hands on drugs and alcohol. Another minus point for sobriety.

“Shit.” Klaus muttered, shivered a little and looked around, the bathroom was empty, and the door left wide open. 

This Dave does not know Klaus. Ben had known him an entire lifetime and this version of NotBen skewered him like human shish kebab. Minus point for this timeline. 

Dave was alive. Plus-hundred-points for this timeline. 

Klaus dunked his head underwater to wash away his thoughts with the soap. It was better not to keep thinking about any of it, he would do what he did best, go with the flow, watch for an opportunity, and take it. Whatever that was. 

Klaus burst his head out of the water, gasping for air, shaking his head like a dog and watching his ringlets scatter droplets around the bathtub. 

Knocking, Dave was leaning on the bathroom door, legs casually crossed, lips tugged upwards amused. He lifted his hands which held a bulky medical kit. 

“Do you want help re-mummifying?” Dave asked pointedly, toeing the discarded pile of soaked rags on the bathroom floor. 

Klaus felt a flush from his chest to his ears, blood rushing around chaotically. The water had cooled considerably while he had lounged, his skin however was burning.  


“I’ll be in the room over,” Dave pointed out the door and walked in said direction. 

Klaus was not shy, had never been shy in his entire life, wasn’t even sure he knew what shame or embarrassment felt like. Ben would have been doubled over on his hand knees laughing, the asshole. Klaus looked at the corner he would have been haunting if he were around and quickly looked away.

Pushing himself up from the bathtub, he carefully wrapped a towel around his chest and wrapped his hair in a towel tower then padded over to the indicated room. Dave was setting up the table with medical products, he glanced at Klaus and nodded to the bed. 

“Normally I’d ask for dinner before getting in the sheets,” Klaus joked and would have bounced on the bed if all his bones and muscles were whole. Instead he just sat down on the edge, gingerly, shaking with excess energy anyway. 

“Well, don’t fret. Dinner is on the way, I made sure we’re getting the fancy pizza.” David quipped and Klaus couldn’t help genuinely laughing. Dave angled the chair in order to reach both Klaus and the table of medical gold. Klaus side eyed the pill bottles and took note of what they were. 

“Can I touch your leg?” Dave gestures to the bare feet in front of him. 

“Such a gentleman,” Klaus murmured lifting his left leg with the most damage on it. “Go for it.” 

With gentle fingers he manoeuvred Klaus’s leg onto his lap, the ripped skin around his calf was mostly back in the right place, scars very obvious. 

“This looks bad, happen a few months ago?” Dave asked, gently running his thumb over the Horror’s work. 

“Something like that,” Klaus shrugged. 

Dave moved to where the tracker had been cut out and hummed curiously. 

“This is healing fast,” Dave said, there was a question attached to the sentence. The cut was coagulated shut and even with the blood washed off, Klaus could see it wouldn’t need stitches. “I cut deep.” 

“Guess not that deep.” Klaus replied and was met with a challenging stare. Klaus rarely liked backing down from staring challenges and tried a suggestive grin to unnerve his opponent. Dave chuckled and looked away rubbing antiseptic cream over the wound and scars before wrapping the entire leg in compression bandages.

Dave applied his medical skills to every cut, nick, and bruise (as well as pulling out glass Klaus had missed) with determined focus, shifting the towel for access to almost everywhere. Klaus used all his willpower not to get a hard on. 

As promised, Klaus was newly stitched and mummified but probably with a bit less bandages then when he had entered the apartment. Painkillers were also dropped on his palm and Klaus did think for a microsecond that he shouldn’t but before the thought had finished, he had swallowed the pills. 

“I picked up some sweats for you to wear.” Dave moved away to pack all the medical equipment and dropped some grey fluffy pants, a grey shirt, grey boxers, grey socks and a black zippered hoodie on the bed. Klaus scrunched up his nose. 

“Do you hate colour and style?” Klaus whined, dropping his towels and pulling said clothes on quickly, he paused when he put the shirt on, it was oversized in the worst way. “Hey, hand me that knife would you?” Klaus asked distractedly. 

“As long as you don’t try to kill me with it,” Dave answered handing him the knife blithely.

Klaus grabbed the shirt, carving it into a crop top, slicing the sleeves off and stretching out the neck. Finally feeling like he could breathe. Klaus looked up to see Dave watching intently. 

“What?” Klaus asked, eyebrow raised. 

“It looks good.” Dave answered, eyes flicking from the cropped top to the slightly pink face, then turned away to continue packing. The apartment bell rang. “Pizza. Come out front when you’re ready.” Dave said as he strolled out with the medical bag.

Klaus had managed to pocket the knife and a bottle of painkillers. Padding to the vanity mirror in the room he looked at himself. His face was bruised, slight bags under his eyes, hair curly sitting at his shoulders still damp. The rest of him looked like a wannabe rapper, oversized clothes. Klaus left the hoodie unzipped to leave some of his stomach showing. 

Dinner was a pleasant enough affair, Klaus inhaling the food enthusiastically at the kitchen bench, everyone standing around the food (when did he last properly eat?). LadyCop not really eating, head in files and Dave eating at a more sedate pace. 

Klaus watched Eudora, in this timeline she was brisk, all work no play. Klaus had been delirious the last time they had crossed paths. There was guilt in the pit of his stomach Klaus realised so he shoved it far, far down his intestines. 

“So, what is the plan here. You grabbed me, so now daddy’s time agents and child soldiers don’t have me, but I’m not thrilled about the prospect of being the government’s science project either.” Klaus asked, mouth full of pizza.

“Daddy?” Eudora asked, one eyebrow raised. 

“Sure, ye ol’ snazzy sexy Mono-colonel Sanders.” Klaus grinned like a shark mostly to keep from gagging from his own imagery, talking fast. Did this timeline have KFC?  


Dave was choking on his slice of pizza, coughing into the sink. 

“And with that, my shift is over.” Eudora stretched, packing up her gear into a side bag readying to leave. “Darren will be here soon. Try not to get any more blood on the walls, cleaning expense is going to be a bitch.” The last part was directed to the only person still eating pizza, she waved and walked out the door, Klaus waved back with his goodbye hand, pizza dancing. 

Watching her go, Klaus finished the pizza and licked his fingers. He pulled himself up on the kitchen bench, pushing the empty pizza box away from him. Fiddling with a tablecloth, he switched to watch Dave clean up the kitchen. Wet dishes were suddenly placed in his hands, probably because he was holding the towel. Klaus dried them mindlessly and not particularly well. 

“So, what’s the plan with me?” Klaus asked innocently again, balancing a plate over a cup. Knowing that sentence could mean many things. 

“There’s a facility in the state, to keep you safe.” Dave voiced lightly not taking the bait, eyes flicking to watch Klaus and his dangerous tower of breakable kitchenware.  


“Yeah, no thanks.” Klaus replied, shivered slightly at the prospect of being locked up in a government bunk underground. “Last time one of my family was locked up by the government, she started a nuclear holocaust that ended the world.” 

“What?” Dave asked leaning over Klaus to grab the dry plates resting precariously on a tumbler, he put them away in the cupboards, finally turning to stare. 

“My point being, what’re the other options?” Klaus asked eyes half lidded stretching his leg out to poke the stomach in front. Dave caught his sock clad ankle easily and put it back down softly. 

“We need to keep you away from the Temps Commission. They’re working outside bounds of law and order, using corrupt money to get away with unethical activities.” Dave said, sounding rehearsed like some sort of business slogan. Dave stood in front of Klaus and held his hand gently, “my superiors know what they’re doing, you would be completely safe.”

“Whilst that sounds incredibly unpleasant. That’s a justification not an option.” Klaus huffed, slightly irritated. 

It started mildly enough, the sound of sobbing from a movie being played a bit too loudly, maybe screaming from a dysfunctional couple, still dulled by the walls of the apartment. The moans however were less easy to ignore. Klaus jerked his head to the front door, he felt the chill first, the smell of blood and corpses came right after. Bodies were starting to phase through the front door. Men and women in varying states of undress, crying, blood mattered hair, gorged eyes and throat, blood between their bare legs. 

Klaus slipped off the kitchen table. 

“What is it?” Dave asked as there was a knock on the door. 

“Don’t open that!” Klaus yelped grabbing Dave’s arm before he could walk to the door. 

“Why?” Dave replied lightly tugging but Klaus held tight like a cinched clamp. 

“Hey Dave, you in there?” A rough male voice called at the door. The victims started howling, stumbling into the room, faces aimed towards the only medium in the room. The shock of the bodies pressing into the room weakened Klaus’s grip enough for Dave pull his arm free and get to the door. 

Klaus watched a girl, prepubescent, crawl into the room, stumps for legs, blood bubbling behind in a parody of a slug trail. The door opened to a man in his forties, rough stubble and salt and pepper hair.

“Hey Darren. Come in.” Dave said from the door, they exchanged pleasantries as the man walked briskly to the kitchen. Klaus kept the kitchen island table between himself and newcomer. 

“This the package?” Darren asked forcefully, finger tapping on the counter, eyes intent.

“This is Klaus.” Dave replied, slight warning in his voice. “We were talking about next steps.”

“So yeah, on that. I’ve been dashing along now, days actually, without any sleep. All this gorgeous,” Klaus gestured to his body, “needs beauty sleep. So I’m gonna peace out.” Pointing at the bedroom door. Hastily backing away to the room used to bandage up. Shutting the door, muffling whatever was the response. Then grabbed a chair and jammed it under the doorknob, quietly. 

Klaus opened the window, it pushed out at an angle facing the balcony. He could probably squeeze out. Sticking his head out, he could see the balcony was close to the neighbouring apartment. He had made further jumps. 

Shoving his head back in, quickly looked around. Seriously, no shoes? He chewed on his lip, Dave was just as beautiful and kind as his own Dave. 

Dave was alive and Dave would be fine without Klaus. 

Life on the street had taught him at least one excellent lesson. Know when to run. Psychopaths with tortured and mangled copse of corpses had an A+ in the category run and don’t look back. Speaking of ghosts, they had yet to wander into the room, but that wouldn’t last much longer by the pitch of the screaming. 

Klaus started squeezing out the window and tumbled onto the balcony, ripping his jacket in the process, leaving a gash in the material from his shoulder to waist on the back, he crouched low and waited a moment. Didn’t want to accidently be spotted or heard from the main room and slouched his way to the edge. Carefully, he climbed up the ledge of the balcony railing. Thinking was the enemy to parkour or so he had been told lifetimes ago. 

Jumping without thinking was usually a sure-fire way to get killed but Klaus was always a lucky bastard. He managed to jump far enough to fold over the balcony railing via his stomach onto the apartment next door. Flipping over the ledge he fell heavily on his ass, sitting for a moment on the ground, chest beating wildly and pain flaring harshly across his torso. Lights danced across his vision but faded quickly. 

The sliding balcony door was locked. Klaus huffed annoyed and looked to his side with an annoyed quip ready. There wasn’t anyone beside him. Klaus swallowed heavily, eyes flicked back to the problematic door. Sighing he walked to end of the balcony and considered another jump. Glancing back at the apartment he came from, there didn’t seem to be any noise alerting anyone of his escape. 

Jumping the second time around almost had him falling ten floors to his death, barely clinging with an elbow hooked to ledge, almost dislocating his shoulder in the process. Pulling himself over onto the floor, he lay down panting, holding his right arm close to his chest. There wasn’t a third jump in the tank, so this better have paid off. 

Unsteadily getting up to his feet Klaus tried the balcony door. It didn’t budge. Klaus smacked his head on the glass, instantly regretting it when his forehead started aching. Stumbling back, he trudged along the balcony and paused. The window to the master bedroom was slightly ajar. 

Gripping the edge of the window he pulled, it opened slowly. This angle was going to be harder to get into the apartment, than the other way around. Crouching, Klaus squeeze his upper body into the room, using his arms to push the rest of his body through, wriggling all the while to allow any of his bones the required space to get through. Klaus tumbled onto a king-sized bed which had been pushed flush against the wall with the window. Klaus stared at the smooth ceiling for a solid minute, pushing back pain and nausea. 

Sleep would be like sinking into a golden bath of spectre-less sanity, a well needed repast. Instead Klaus rolled off the bed and landed on his hands and feet at the foot of the bed. Standing was starting to become difficult. Deep breaths to calm the body, stop the shaking.

Making his way to the bedroom door, opened cautiously, the hallway was dark, nothing moved. Seemed like the apartment was empty, the layout almost identical to the one he had been in with Dave. Moving to the front door, Klaus peaked outside surreptitiously. 

The hallway was abandoned, the escaped apartment seemed quiet, ghosts muffled adequately by the building walls. Klaus didn’t need much more impetus, sprinted down the hall to the elevator and hit the down button multiple times. The elevator landed with a ding and throwing himself into the metal box and pushed the ground button frantically.  


Seconds later found himself in the foyer, chucking up the hood of the jacket to cover his face, sneaked out the front door and started jogging down the street, pain faded from the handful of pills swallowed. The streetlights glowed dully mixing with store lights providing a nimbus of dirty yellow light to lead the way. Not even ten minutes later he was wheezing from the jog, doubled over and trying to give constricted lungs some air, settled for walking at a moderate pace. Maybe he should join Diego or Luther on a morning run or something, if he ever saw them again.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's nothing like family.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wonder what the siblings have been doing?

Klaus wandered to a busy street, nightlife roaring, pretty women and men with cigarettes and cocktails hanging outside bars and giggling. Lots of them had small devices in their hands, little rectangles growing brightly that divided their attention from the people around them. Klaus saw the back of one of the devices and his eyebrows shot up.  


Klaus watched for a moment before wandering to a group of twenty-year-old partygoers. They were inside the patio area of the bar, separated from the street by a flimsy garden themed balustrade. There was a brunette, a blonde and red head, Klaus liked the range of colours. One of the members of the party resembled the blonde one from that Scooby-doo movie. Klaus hopped on the thin ledge of the balustrade getting close to the group.  


“Why hello there.” Klaus purred at the group, waving his hello hand.  


Catching the attention of the group, the pretty brunette with a skin-tight mini dress flicked her eyes to the waving hand, recognition flashing.  


“Brother. That’s old-school. Ya know they don’t actually want us getting tattoos.” She replied, cigarette hanging from her lips, she flicked her rectangle away with the “Hello, Goodbye, Destiny’s Children,” logo plastered on the back.  


“Really,” Klaus said surprised, “Why not, they’re ironically fashionable.”  


“Why are they ironic?” Blonde Scooby asked, taking large sips of his drink.  


“Ah I’m sure only the prophet would know that.” Klaus replied cheekily. “So, the commune is still kicking around then?”  


“You mean one of the biggest churches in the US? Definitely kicking around.” The other lady giggled, a red head, arched one perfectly manicured eyebrow. Klaus whistled, wow, that must have definitely fucked many things in this timeline but also that was incredibly hilarious, did they still sprout song lyrics as scripture?  


“Church huh?” Klaus responded.  


“Have you not gone to assembly for a while then?” Blondie asked, lighting a cigarette.  


“Guess not.” Klaus replied picking the cigarette from blondie’s mouth to take a drag. His new friend shrugged and lit another one instead of taking it back.  


Before any further conversation could be had an alarm started blaring in the plaza, red lights flashing from the tops of buildings. People’s pockets (probably where they kept their rectangles) also started beeping in alarm. Blondie grabbed Klaus by the back of his jacket and hauled him over the barrier with surprising strength, Klaus squeaked.  


“There’s a shelter in the basement.” Blondie answered to Klaus’s squeak, starting to drag him to the door.  


“Shelter for what?” Klaus asked over the noise.  


“For the assignation.” The red head answered like it was obvious, indisputable fact. They all started running inside. Klaus pulled away from the group. “What’re you doing, we only have minutes to get in before they lock door. You don’t know who they are or the casualty radius!”  


“So total honesty here. I have no idea what you’re saying.” Klaus said in response to the nonsense being sprouted from the trio. They seemed to torn between convincing Klaus to go with them, to not wanting to be outside, survival must have won out, shaking their heads running for the a door which seemed to lead down the back of the bar. All other patrons disappearing as well. The door seemed to seal with a very resounding crack.  


Klaus wandered back out to the patio, the entire street seemed to have vacated. The alarms continued to blare. A moment later the entire structure shook, Klaus dropped to his hands and knees, crawling to one of the tables as partial cover.  


Looking through the balustrade a young woman seemed to have landed in the middle of the street. What was surprising about this was the massive indent she left on the ground, like a tiny meteor had landed on the cement at her feet. It caved into the middle where she was bent over panting. Suddenly she stood up and the ground crumbled and lifted into the air around her, she started punching the air her movements somehow directing large pieces of ground to start flying into the sky. Klaus watched mesmerised, was this some sort of telekinetic powers? She was wearing black ripped jeans and a tight red corset, arms bare, she didn’t look like the sparrow kids.  


The super powered woman suddenly jumped back as a murder of crows swooped down from the sky, she twisted in mid-air avoiding their beaks and didn’t come back to the ground like gravity usually suggested one should. The crows slammed into the ground all on top of each other, painfully, the mass undulated then straightened up. A young man was standing in the place of the crows. Klaus was sure he could catch flies from the way his jaw was hanging.  


This one he did recognise. The uniform, the logo. This was definitely a sparrow kid.  


“Come on Red Diamond, we do this dance monthly. It’s getting old, there must be better ways to get my attention.” The bird guy yelled to the air sardonically.  


“Fuck you pigeon-fucker.” The lady in the air screamed as she pulled part of the roof off one of the buildings to throw at her adversary. Klaus skuttled back from where he had been creeping to the edge of the patio not wanting to get hit with any of the debris as it smashed where bird boy had been before he dispersed in a cloud of birds. He realised his mistake of jerking away as the lady in the air suddenly swivelled to stare directly at him.  


Suddenly the terms casualty radius and shelters were starting to make a lot of sense in this weird ass timeline.  


Klaus heaved to standing, spun around and didn’t look to see if the flying lady was interested in his not-as-obviously-supered body. Crashing through the kitchen doors he hurtled into the tiny room, plates flying, ignoring the ceramic shards under his feet he twisted through the back, hoping they had a loading door at the back. Luckily, they did, Klaus careered through the back door and sprinted across the street, ignoring all advice from his body about badly damaged assets.  


The street exploded around him. Klaus screamed falling backwards on his ass, arms flung in front of his face. Gunfire, smoke, ash, blood in his mouth, was that the sting of insects in the hot jungle? A screaming voice broke through the haze.  


“So I’m not fucking Terminus! You have the gall to run around? Fuck this shit! I’m never taken seriously.”  


Klaus lowered his arms to see most of the street ripped apart and the flying lady named Red Diamond standing in front of him, hands on hips screaming at him. Mascara running down her cheeks, hair a catastrophe and blood running down her nose.  


“Hey, hey, sorry.” Klaus said gently, hands waving placatingly, “I’m new in town and I don’t really know what’s going on. You are terrifying. I definitely take you very, very seriously!” Klaus pled, offering a small smile, sweat soaking through his shirt and dripping down his neck.  


“You need to learn a lesson!” the yelling was hysterical, her eyes glowed red, more blood spurt out of her nose, dripping down her chin to splatter on her collarbones.  


The ground twisted around Klaus, wrapping around his chest tightly, arms bound at his side. One moment Red Diamond was trying to squeeze the air from his lungs the next moment Klaus heard a loud crack, her body smashing to the ground as a giant blob of purple buried her. The road stopped trying to crush Klaus, wriggling unsuccessfully and keeping a keen eye on the purple blob, he tried to escape.  


The birds descended near the blob and converged into a man. Klaus wriggled even harder, most likely opening old wounds and bloodying himself up, panic and adrenaline numbed the pain.  


“Oh. You.” Birdguy said glancing his way. “Number Six, here take this, sedate and contain.” The man made of birds dropped a syringe on the blob. That section of purple mass transformed into a hand and continued to metamorphosise until there was a young man in a sparrow uniform holding the syringe. A normal man, with a slight purple sheen to him but that colour could have been the alarm siren lights reflecting off the skin which were still flashing without the piercing sound. Number Six stuck the needle in Red Diamond’s neck, she was struggling weakly, but Klaus was sure she must have been more broken bones than whole, so she was flopping more like a dead fish anyway. The injection made her slump completely, unconscious or dead? She was lifted in the arms of Number Six as he walked off.  


Klaus watched terrified as the birdman crouched to eye level. The Sparrow member had dead eyes, reminiscent of the crows he seemed to be made from as well as flat dull black hair that framed his face.  


“Well, this is a surprise.” The guy smirked and pushed Klaus’s sweaty hair away from his face. “Number Four.”  


“Yeah, I’m Number Four I guess, call me Klaus.” Klaus responded confused, wide eyed.  


Birdguy laughed, it was a nice laugh, he seemed genuinely delighted. “I’m Number Four.” He pointed to his own chest. “Nice to meet you, Klaus.” He replied enthusiastically.  


“Oh.” Klaus replied dumbstruck. So this was his replacement, were alternative timelines considered a form of replacement? Did he even exist here? “Err, can you get me out of here?” Klaus asked nervous.  


“Number One was pretty distraught about what happened to you. Dear old Reggie has him doing control training without break. I think he’s still training tonight.” Number Four said conversationally not attempting to release Klaus from his road prison.  


“Oh,” Klaus replied again dumbly, he had no idea what to do with that information. He was feeling particularly thrown from his axis.  


“We watched the morgue footage where you popped right back up like a daisy. I will say, that moment, that was the most excited I have ever seen dear dad. I think Number One threw up,” he made a disgusted face at that, “I’ve always said he doesn’t have the constitution for being the leader.” He was absently twirling Klaus’s hair in his finger while he spoke. “Are you immortal?”  


“I don’t…think so.” Klaus replied slowly, shifting his arms in a vain attempt to loosen the confining road.  


“Someone should test it properly.” Something dark flashed in Number Four’s gaze, he was still smiling.  


Klaus wondered if this timeline Reginald fucked these kids up even worse than the first time around. The sparrow academy might be hanging about together, missioning well past the time the umbrella academy disbanded but they seemed… unhinged, unrepentant, completely desensitised to the violence. Then again, was that really so different from his siblings?  


Number Four dropped his hand from Klaus’s hair and reached to his belt where he pulled out another syringe. Klaus started struggling mercilessly, trying to use his blood as lubricant to wiggle out.  


“Don’t do this. Please.” Klaus whimpered, trying to kick out with his trapped feet and throwing his head side to side.  


“I would prefer you didn’t thrash around. I would rather not see you more hurt.” Number Four sighed, free hand coming back up to hold Klaus still by his hair. 

There was an explosion of birds or at least that what it seemed. Number Four broke apart into crows that dispersed, in his place was Five. Umbrella-Five. 

“Five?” Klaus asked apprehensively, eyes wet, who knew if there was a super powered shapeshifter in the group. 

“Luther, hurry the ever-loving hell up.” The little psycho growled as he pocked the dropped syringe. No other thirteen-looking year old could sound so abrasive. Flashing away to keep the sparrows busy, Klaus assumed. 

Luther’s heavy footfalls were behind, large hands ripped the concrete binding Klaus, pitching him forward. Other pieces of road were broken away quickly as Luther hauled Klaus up. 

“Danke,” Klaus mumbled to his physically bigger brother, wheezing slightly. His ribs better not be re-broken. 

“We need to go. Now.” Luther said one massive hand wrapped around Klaus’s forearm as he started running.

“Wait!” Klaus screeched as he tried to make his feet move the kind of distance and speed required to keep his arm intact. Hoping his shoulder wasn’t dislocated. 

“No.” Luther replied, spinning around and lifting Klaus while continuing to run. 

Nestled close to his brother’s chest, Klaus cradled his injured shoulder. At least he was getting carried in a more comfortable style. Luther’s breaths echoed loudly as the big guy galloped down the street, twisting around corners like he knew where he was going. 

Five flashed before them and without missing a beat grabbed Luther and Klaus’s arms before the world spun violently and sharply, electricity ripping through space. 

Klaus groaned and pushed off the body holding him falling to his knees, dizzily he threw up, pizza making its colourful way right back out. Gagging, he brought up another round, like the body aiming for empty. 

“Oh gross.” 

Klaus could hear speaking but could not pinpoint where exactly all sounds and lights were coming from with his eyes squeezed shut and his guts heaving. 

“You got him!” 

Klaus sat back and scooted on his ass away from his mess, squinting open his eyes. Daylight was breaking over the rooftop. All siblings were accounted for and hovering around the courtyard, talking and watching Klaus. 

“How the fuck did you lose him Diego?” Five asked sharply and breathless, “You had literally one job. Get him here.” 

Klaus watched a bit more interestedly as his siblings started discussing well, the Number Four of the Umbrella Academy. 

“I feel very out of the loop. What is going on?” Klaus asked, pushing away sweat-greased and bloody hair away from his face, he was about ready for another bath and bed. He really needed to sleep. “Is there another Vanya inspired apocalypse because I say we let it happen this time. This timeline is loco.” Klaus had one hand up for attention and the other twirling around his head as per the signature sign for crazy. 

“You, it seems are in hot demand Klaus.” Five replied briskly, starting to pace, his littlest-oldest brother was looking like he was about to keel over, sweat drenched collar, pale.  


Allison was sitting on the edge of a lawn chair, her hair pulled up in a soft bun, her eyes were red rimmed. Vanya was next to her, face bruised, split lip with a black eye, holding Alison’s hand. Luther was leaning against the wall next to a door, shoulders slumped. The door looked like it went into a cute Victorian style house. Diego was perched on one knee, fingers filtering around Klaus, looking for damage most likely, pressing against his injured shoulder. Klaus hissed at him. 

The courtyard they were loitering in was adorable, apart from the mess he had left on the grass, there was cute potted plants all around, picturesque vines twisting around white panelling, with stone and brick detailing supporting very well-placed trees. 

“Me?” Klaus asked anxiously. Another life lesson on the street is when shit starts to go down, you do not want to be the centre of attention. Even a peacock like Klaus needed to blend into the woodwork at times. 

“You can come back to life.” Five said dangerous, angry, no space to oppose the statement. “You are now the embodiment of the well-spring of life and everyone, that is everyone who would massacre this family without thought, is looking for you.” 

Klaus swallowed uncomfortably. Siblings shifted uncomfortably as silence dogged Five’s statements. 

“What makes everyone think that?” Klaus asked, pitch warbling higher than he meant. One of the glowing rectangles was shoved in his hands, which tumbled from his stiff fingers, catching it again it dimmed and went dark. Klaus looked up confused. 

Diego grabbed the thing, straightened it, pressed something and it glowed again. He touched the screen, numbers and icons flashing around until there was a video playing. It looked to be security footage but clearer and in vivid colour, Klaus had never seen a video that captured reality so intimately before. 

“Is this a tiny TV?” Klaus asked in admiration, if this is what those kids were seeing no wonder they kept getting distracted by it. 

“It’s a phone.” Diego replied.

“This is not a phone.” Klaus snorted incredulous. “There’s a video.” And now Klaus was watching the video he realised he was watching himself without any sound. There was hours younger Klaus getting the shit beaten out of him by NotBen, it looked even worse than it had felt, face smashing against the floor. Wincing in sympathy, TV Klaus was stumbling to the door, running like a foal with broken legs until the impact. Klaus hadn’t realised just how much of his insides spilled out of him… was that his spine hanging out?  


Diego gagged and Klaus wanted to chuck the device far away but something else caught his attention. NotBen had run up to Klaus’s body and was trying in vain to put his insides back in, distraught, hands flailing, screaming, the pain and despair clear across his face. NotBen was crouched over his body, shoulders shaking until a team of people with a stretcher was running in and pushing NotBen away. 

The footage faded to black, then it was footage in the morgue. They wheeled him in, were they trying to put his spine back in? Klaus blanched as they tried to operate, he guessed, it didn’t take long for the people to start shaking their heads. Then they were wrapping him up in a body bag, adding all the bits of him they hadn’t put inside the body. The footage was suddenly sped up, the little timer flying forward until Klaus ripped the bag open and sat up, body whole. 

“What kind of fucking movie phone is this?” Klaus whined giving into temptation and throwing it back at Five who caught it with a scandalised look. 

“Klaus how did you do that?” Alison finally spoke, distress evident in her voice. 

“I don’t know!” Klaus said, hands flying wildly, searching Alison’s eyes and coming up short. 

“How do you not know, Klaus these are your powers!” Five replied bewildered, voice low and unimpressed. Luther snorted amused. 

“My powers do whatever it wants, without my say.” Klaus replied honestly aggravated. Did no-one pay attention to the last 30-whatever years? Klaus and his powers were not on speaking terms at least ninety percent of the time. 

“You really died?” Diego finally asked, hand brushing uncertainly against Klaus’s cheek. His angriest yet soft-hearted brother looked so sad, Adam’s apple bobbing, brow furrowed. Klaus sighed and rubbed his eyes groaning. 

“I guess, I don’t know. Life and death and the afterlife are kind of confusing.” Klaus finally replied, “I don’t use any powers to come back. I keep getting kicked out before going any further.”

“You get kicked out? You keep getting kicked out?” Vanya piped up, “kicked out of where, by who, how many times are we talking about here?” her voice sounded hoarse, like she might have been screaming in the recent past. 

“Err well I’m agnostic so I don’t know where or who, but it’s usually a mostly monochromatic grey park and by a spunky prepubescent ethnically ambiguous girl.” Klaus watched his siblings, their faces going through a multitude of confusion and incredulities. 

“Death-throes hallucination?” Luther asked, “because none of that made any sense.” 

“Painted pots and kettles Gorilla-man!” Klaus spat glaring over his shoulder and then gave up falling backwards onto the grass, anger dissipating as fast as it had come, this was all too exhausting. “I say with love.” Klaus sighed, blowing a kiss to Luther. “This has been a lovely family reunion and I welcome you to continue the fuckery without me.” Klaus got to his feet, dodging his brothers to the door. “I am, however, going to have a shower. Tell me there are some fashionable clothes in this house.” And walked out of their sight.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Do we have extended family now?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I miss Ben. I want to write him ghosting about. 
> 
> I've made many guesses regarding the sparrow academy... which may all be wrong. So keep in mind I don't know anything :)
> 
> Does anyone want to edit this fic? I could use a beta/editor.

Sleep didn’t bother to arrive and Klaus thrashed his pillow, huffed dramatically and glared at the ceiling. Exhaustion was crawling through every nerve in the body, at the same time electric dread was pulsing sharply. The contradiction was making him sweat, wanting to simultaneously pass out and run for his life. 

Something to numb the brain would do wonders. Klaus pushed the blankets away from heated skin, dressed in slightly too large briefs and a singlet from when Diego had gone shopping. Black jeans and a puffer jacket sat on the dresser in the room. Klaus had removed all the bandages when he had showered and decided all the wounds could just heal in the spring air.

The pain medication he had swiped was under his pillow. His leg was jangling fast, up and down. Klaus sat up, pill bottle in his hand before he had even registered he was going to do that. A knock on the door stopped him from doing anything else, Alison walked in without waiting for an answer. 

“What is that?” Her eyes narrowed quickly on the bottle in his hands. 

“Nothing.” Klaus answered breezily aiming to squirrel the bottle away. Alison was faster, grabbing it out of his hands. 

“Where did you get this?” Alison asked curiously, reading the label. 

“Did you need something Ally?” Klaus deflected, fingers playing with the edge of the pillow.

Alison sat down heavily on the bed, looking away from Klaus fingers tight on the pill bottle. Taking a deep breath, she let it out fast, chest shuddering under the heave. 

“Claire doesn’t exist.” Alison finally managed, mouth snapping shut like she had cursed in front of their father. Alison lifted legs to the edge of the bed so she could rest her head on her knees, trying to keep the emotions from spilling over. 

“Oh Ally,” Klaus whispered, turning on the bed and cradling his sister close to his chest. She wasn’t crying but he could guess she had already done quite a bit of that recently. “I’m so sorry.” He rested his forehead on her hair, cuddling close. 

“Apparently we no longer exist in the timeline at all, says Five.” Alison pulled away from Klaus to look at him directly. “But this body knows Claire, I held her in my body for nine months, in my arms for years afterwards. That didn’t go away, I exist, I still feel her, I don’t understand how she cannot exist. She already existed!” Alison’s eyes were bright. “I’ve lost my past and my future.” 

Klaus swallowed throat tight and tongue dry, silent, rubbing small circles onto Alison’s arms. 

“Can you… if she…in our original timeline. Is she…” Alison took a deep breath, sentences broken and nonsensical. “Can you conjure her?” Alison pleaded, arms unwrapping from her legs, turning her body to face Klaus and hold his forearms. 

Klaus’s heart almost shuddered to stop. If they move around the timeline, did dead people also move around the timeline? 

“I don’t know how it works Alison.” Klaus said softly unable to keep looking into her broken eyes. “I’ll…” Klaus swallowed again, heart stuttering fast. “I can try?” 

Alison nodded there was fear, there was hope and Klaus felt like he was going to throw up. 

“But not today, not now. I’m not feeling great.” Klaus broke away, scooting a bit away from his sister. 

“Ok. I’ll just take these with me.” Alison said smiling apprehensively, the pills disappearing into her jacket. She stood up, nodded and walked out, shutting the door softly behind her. 

Klaus waited a heartbeat, listening to her footsteps recede. Then jumped out of the bed and pulled his clothes on hastily, grabbing the knife from under his pillow, chucking on the socks and canvas shoes, not bothering to lace them properly. Shoving the window up, he hopped out the side of the house and made way to the gate, pulling it open slowly, looked out the front yard. No-one was around, it was still very early. Klaus slipped out and started running. No ghost conscience to keep him from bolting. 

He was doubled over and sucking in gasping lungs full of air a minute and few blocks later. Dizzily sitting by the side of the well-manicured lawns. His siblings were hiding away in some stepford wives kind of closed gated community, all the lawns had a fake green sheen, the building glistening from the rising sun. It was terrifying and nauseating, Klaus wondered mildly if the children in these mansions would come walking out in polo shirts and white cardigans. 

Klaus flopped on his back to watch fluffy white clouds floating in the sky. 

“Is it dead?” 

“It’s a boy, not an it.” 

Klaus woke up with a start, a sharp poke at his side. Sitting up in a panic he came face to face with two young children. Perfectly groomed blond hair, blue eyes and pressed clothing. They looked like siblings, a boy and girl, maybe around four or five years of age. 

“You shouldn’t go around poking people,” Klaus mumbled at the kids, exaggeratingly rubbing his side. 

“Well, I don’t think you are allowed to sleep outside our house.” The girl smartly retorted.

“Geez, aren’t you precocious.” Klaus rubbed his face, the sun was shining brightly directly above his head. 

“We’re not a peacocks! Mum says we are angels.” The boy replied, arms crossed in front of his chest. “And we own this grass.” 

“Unless you’ve been time travelling, you’re just kids and your parents own this place, not you.” Klaus stuck his tongue out at the kids. 

The little boy scrunched his nose up, eyes starting to water and started wailing, calling for this mother. Klaus blanched. A blonde lady looking very fifties housewife, reminding Klaus of his own mother, stepped out of the house, broomstick in hand. 

“Louis! Louanne! Come here. What is happening out here?” Housewife yelled, stepping towards her kids. 

Klaus got up and dusted his pants, his height seemed to terrify the kids who ran away screaming back to their mother. The mother was walking towards Klaus, threateningly with the broom held outwards like a sword. Taking his cue to leave, giving the family a curtsey before jogging away. 

There was a reason he hated suburbia, it was just parks and houses. Where did anyone get grub, drinks or drugs? How did one even leave the hellhole without a car? Klaus started canvassing the houses as he passed them, it had been a while since breaking into houses for essentials was a necessity. 

Finally settling on a smaller unassuming one-story house, where the mail had started to pile up in the mailbox and the lawn was looking slightly shaggy. Klaus walked to the side fence of the next-door neighbour’s house of the target, in case anyone was watching, the streets were mostly empty, Klaus guessed it was coming on lunch time on a white-collar workday. 

There was a good hedge in the neighbour’s house that would provide excellent cover as Klaus clambered over the fence and dropped down to the side of his target house, huffing in a bit of pain. Dropping down inside the fenced area that connected to the backyard. Klaus wandered to the backyard quietly, listening for any sound, watching for any movement. 

Blessed silence dogged him, even the ghosties keeping to the peripheries, they were probably freaking out about the absolute boring normalness of the suburbs. People from the suburbs died generally satisfied in hospitals of old age, those usually didn’t bother hanging around. Klaus tried all the back doors, they were all locked, then he tried all the windows and found the small one in the kitchen unlatched. Klaus looked at the window inslight trepidation, that might actually be too small even for him. 

Oh well, one can only try right? What the worst that could happen? Klaus grabbed the rolling bin from the side of the house and yanked it to the window, climbed on top of it and dragged the window up and open. He measured its width and tried to compare it to his shoulders. 

Something grabbed the back of his jacket and wrenched him bodily off the bin. Klaus couldn’t muffle the surprised yell as he fell backwards into a hard body. A hand covered his mouth as he screamed and started thrashing like a wildling, the hand muffled the sound substantially. 

“Shut up Klaus!” 

Klaus stilled more from surprise. He knew that voice, his attacker let him go swinging him around so they were face to face. 

“Di…. how?” Klaus asked surprised, face flushed and heart battering away.

“You weren’t in your room, figured you either did a runner or had been kidnapped under our noses… again. Five, Alison, Vanya and Luther are trolling the police scanner and the internet looking for clues about our many, many enemies.” Diego, paused to allow that point to sink in. “If you had however done a runner, I figured you had no plan, no money, no idea about this timeline’s electronics and no idea where you are. You are most likely hungry, so I canvassed all the houses ripe for breaking and entering, your usual M.O.” Diego replied, eyes lowered not watching Klaus, knife picking at his nails, trying hard to project the uncaring, bored vigilante. The strain around his jaw and the tick in his forehead belied the actions. 

“Well Sherlock you caught me. You know, with those skills you could be cop. Oh wait, that didn’t work out too well for you when you tried.” Klaus pressed a little, mostly annoyed at the idea he was predictable. 

“What are you doing Klaus?” Diego sighed, slipping his knife somewhere unseen. 

“Well, like you said I don’t think these things through. I don’t really have a ghost conscience anymore.” Klaus pressed a little harder, not sure why he was trying to make his brother angry. He could see Diego’s fingers twitch ready to strike, Klaus wondered if he would hit him. 

“Low Klaus. Just come back so we can get out of this shithole and go back home.” Diego finally replied anger seeping away, throwing Klaus sideways from their normal verbal battleground. 

“Discount batman’s argument is not very persuasive.” Klaus replied frankly.

“Its been a fucking shit few months Klaus.” 

“Try the last thirty-four non-chronological years,” Klaus muttered, eyes scanning for the best way to get out of this interaction and away from everyone. Diego moved his hand to wrap fingers tight around Klaus’s wrist. He tried to tug it out. “Seriously?” Klaus deadpanned. 

“You have the shifty eyes of a runner,” Diego replied bluntly and started moving them away from the house and back where they had come from. If anyone were watching them, it would have made a strange sight. One rough looking leather clad Latina badass dragging around a skinny hippie-junkie around a conservative’s wet dream of a neighbourhood.  


Diego stopped abruptly and shoved Klaus behind a small brick fence, following closely. Hand gripped tightly on shoulder communicated to stay quiet. Klaus peaked over the edge to whatever had alerted his most paranoid brother. A black van was parked on the curb, a few houses away from their commandeered place of stay. A pretty lady with a high blond ponytail was sitting atop the van watching the neighbourhood, whilst not currently in a Sparrow uniform, Klaus recognised her as one of the seven. 

Klaus sank back down the wall, pale and big eyed watching his brother. Diego for his part looked like he had swallowed a dead fish, grimacing, jaw clenched brows furrowed. Klaus grabbed his brother’s ear, none to kindly, pulling it close to whisper frantically. 

“There are trackers in your legs. All of you.” Klaus sweated, how could he have forgotten to tell them that?

Diego raised an eyebrow, his non-verbal ‘what?’. Klaus pointed to roughly the right area at his own leg, then pointed to Diego’s leg.

Diego wasted no time pulling his pants up and slicing into his leg, Klaus swallowed uncomfortably as fingers disappeared underneath the skin. A metal pill came out bloodied. Diego crushed it underneath his black combat boots. 

“Klaus go and hide. I’ll find you when its safe.” Diego bent close to talk, voice barely audible. 

“Much love pointy brother but that’s not a great idea. We need to warn the others, you can’t do it alone.” Klaus whispered back. 

“No. They want you.” 

“They want all of us.” 

“Fuck. On my signal, run and get the others.” Diego pushed up and started walking to the van. “Stalking us then?” Diego shouted to the lady. 

“You’re a wanted man, doesn’t count as stalking. It’s a public service.” Ponytail retorted. “We doing this the easy way or the hard way?” 

“I don’t know why you bothered asking.” Diego shouted as he started running, daggers flying from fingers to curve into soft flesh. The first hit in Pontytail’s upper arm and she yelled startled jumping down from the van. Seconds later her face glowed a sun orange yellow, which led to a hot blast of fiery light sprouting out from her face, blowing daggers from the air and exploding part of the road. 

That was enough of a signal for Klaus to jump up and start sprinting for his siblings, realising much to late into the run that he was severely dehydrated, starving, mostly a mass of healing broken bones, barely sealed wounds and bruises held together with the barest whisper of grace. All to say, he slowed moments later, saving him from getting knocked out by a blur of blond. 

Klaus backpedalled falling on his ass to watch a blond-haired blue-eyed all very American vision of a movie protagonist (shockingly reminiscent of a teenage Luther) barrel into where he would have been if he had a body able to properly run. More explosions sounded behind him and Klaus desperately wanted to look back and make sure his brother wasn’t in pieces. However, boy-wonder had turned all his attention his way and all Klaus could think of doing was scooting away on his ass. 

“Get up.” Boy-wonder finally said frustration in his voice, hands clenched but unmoving. 

“Ah no… no thank you.” Klaus replied, intimately understanding this specific reaction. A hero-saviour complex, boy-wonder wouldn’t hit him if he wasn’t actively doing anything. Brainwashed superheros with god complexes were always so easy to manipulate. Klaus held his clenched fists up in surrender. 

As expected, Boy-wonder wilted, moving slowly to Klaus, guard down. Bending down to pull his target up, Klaus shoved his handful of dirt in Wonder-boys’ eyes and followed up by a hearty kick straight to his balls. The kid squealed, doubled over falling to the ground by Klaus’s feet, one hand desperately rubbing his eyes, trying to see, while tears streamed down his face and the other hand protectively holding his crotch. 

Klaus grinned, good boys never stood a chance against someone from the streets. Hopping up he added insult to injury by frog jumping over the slumped body of his victim and jogged painfully to siblings who were running out of the house to the chaos on the streets. The explosions must have alerted them.

Panting badly Klaus waved for their attention, “Sparrows…” huff… huff, “trackers in calves,” gasp… puff… “Diego. Backup. Go.” Klaus pointed, turning back in time to see and enraged boy-wonder getting up. Problem with hero complexes is they also have very big egos and don’t do well being taken down a peg or two. Getting his breath back he managed to grab Luther’s arm, “Don’t let that one near me, please buddy.” 

“Got it.” Luther nodded changing direction for wonder-boy. 

Turning back to his siblings, he watched as Five was smashing a tracker under foot, blood lightly seeping from both calves. Maybe he should have mentioned which leg. Vanya and Allison were already dashing for Diego and Ponytail. 

“I’ll get the other’s trackers out.” Five said looking up sharply at Klaus, “Get in the house and hide.” 

When did Klaus suddenly become the damsel in distress? Well okay, so he was mostly useless in a fight, but it was still irksome. 

“Oh shit.” Klaus squeaked looking past his physically smallest brother. Five turned around at Klaus’s exclamation. They both watched as NotBen, Four, Six, a brunette and a floating green cube get out of a black van. Klaus noticed amusedly that the van had the sparrow insignia painted on the sides and front. The amusement fell away quickly as he watched the five sparrow members make their way to the fight. 

“The odds don’t look good.” Five said, hands in pockets and shoulders tense. 

“Mi amor, how many of us can you teleport away?” 

“None, I’m tapped out. We’ve been fighting for three days now. I should have realised trackers, they’re still the Temps Commission underneath it all.” Five was shaking but his face housed a slightly manic grin, bloodlust flashing in his eyes. 

“What do we do?” Klaus asked, slightly afraid. 

“I talk. You don’t say shit or move from my side. If it goes sideways, pray to your spunky prepubescent ethnically ambiguous girl god.” Five said, teeth clenched and started walking towards the sparrows. Klaus followed on his brother’s heels not having any better plan. 

“Let’s chat Sparrow Academy.” Five shouted over to the group which had come to a standstill on the road, a very outnumbered face-off. They even stood in formation, flanking their leader in a V shape. 

“What’s to chat about? You come with us, or we beat you to an inch of your life and you come with us.” NotBen shouted back, smug smile on his face, there was tension underneath it though, dark circles hanging from the familiar face. 

“You can probably capture one of us. But our siblings will capture two of yours.” Five thumbed back to the fight behind them, four against two were not good odds for the sparrows. “Then we’re back to negotiations anyway and you’ll be at a disadvantage.” 

“One of you? Seem pretty confident there.” 

“That’s because you can’t stop me ducking out of time. You won’t get me.” Five’s voice clear and confident, no hint of deception. Klaus was impressed. 

“What’s your offer then?” NotBen growled, eyebrows furrowed.

“My siblings and I want to leave this timeline, jump to an alternative reality one might say. We have no interest in making any trouble. Give us back the briefcase, one week and we will disappear.” 

“That doesn’t work for us. We contain the Umbrella Academy and we will work with you to figure out an optimal solution.” 

“No. My siblings are left alone.” 

“You, Klaus, Alison and Vanya. Then you have a deal.” NotBen said, palms out. Five was shaking his head before NotBen had even finished. 

“You would capture the two idiots hours later when they came for us.” 

Klaus was used to tracking quick flashing movements at his peripheries. With the ghosts came a rather accentuated ability to react quickly by jerking out the way of a phasing spirit. Klaus was moving before fully registering that it wasn’t a ghost trying to phase through him but a green hand grasping for his neck. 

Falling flat on his ass for a second time in minutes he screamed as the green cube shapeshifted to a likeness of Ben. Called it, Klaus bloody called a shapeshifter in the ranks! The only difference from expectation was that it didn’t look human, rather a plastic mould, the movement of the cube-human more fluid than any organism of muscles and bones. Five had jumped back at Klaus’s scream and had automatically pulled out a knife to quickly stab the enemy. The knife slid straight into where a heart would be on a human, the cube-human shuddered and then in a blink disappeared. Five was left holding a knife in mid-air.

A shapeshifting teleporting Green Cube. 

There was movement everywhere, suddenly all the sparrow soldiers were running at them. Five was screaming and jumping into the fight. The rest of his siblings were suddenly in the fray. Roads, air, garbage bins, plants were exploding, knives where whizzing through the air. 

Klaus was hyperventilating, crawling on his forearms and knees to anyplace with cover, trenches would be useful. Someone grabbed his upper arm and threw him half-way across the front yard of a house, he didn’t know if it was friend or foe. Crashing into a bush he looked up dazed. A murder of crows was diving at him from the sky, Klaus rolled away panicking, scrambling to his feet. 

Klaus didn’t wait for Birdboy to coagulate into a man, instead he was vaulting over the side fence of the house they were desecrating. Continued to run through to the backyard and jumped over the back fence to land on a parallel street to the fight. 

“You know I can fly, right?” Birdboy was waiting on the sidewalk, arms crossed, watching with dark eyes amused. 

Klaus panted roughly, pressing back into the wooden fence, hands on knees. Holding out one hand, asking for a second to catch his breath back. Taking a deep breath in, he closed his eyes and held it, calming the torrential mind and soul. 

Opening his eyes, he looked up, feeling powers seep from the exhales. The dead flickered around Birdboy. Casualties or kills? There were some average people hovering around, cut up. Deaths only slightly gruesome. A lot of the dead had the look of stereotypical disreputable bad guys, fishnet masks, black commando gear, vicious scars and tattoos, a lot had their necks slit open. 

“Preferred way of killing, slicing open necks?” Klaus asked curiously watching one dead man spurt streams of blood on Birdboy as he yelled incomprehensibly, the blood dissipated moments after touching the living. 

“Talons make it easy.” Birdboy presented his hand which transformed into sharp claws, the nails protruding disproportionally large and sharp. Flicking his wrist, the hand melted back into a human hand. 

“Err…handy that.” Klaus giggled, lungs struggling to maintain a steady pace of air flow. Bridboy smiled at the pun but didn’t move any closer. Not being underestimated or just waiting for an easier opportunity? 

Klaus focused on the twisting cold thread of death that persisted at the fringes of perception and pulled. Feeling the embrace of decay and chill, Klaus allowed it to wrap around his hands and spread through veins to the rest of his body. A blaze of blue flame like light erupted around his body, focused mostly on clenched hands. For a giddy moment, it felt powerful like the essence of every being, living or dead, could be taken, used, forged or banished. 

Then came the feeling of being drained, like every part of his existence was stretching and liquifying to be consumed. Before losing himself to the power, he directed the energy into the dead and fuelled their anger towards Sparrow Academy Number Four, compelling them to corporeality. 

Klaus watched a haze of blue pop into existence and Bridboy bodily lurch and stagger away from the horde of the dead. They were on top of him in moment, screaming the anger of the beyond. Bridboy tried to fly away, surprisingly many of the birds were caught by the hands of the dead, his body was torn and reformed. 

“Stop this!” Bridboy screamed, his voice mingling with the dead.

Legs buckling, Klaus fell to the ground edges of his vision starting to blacken. Distantly he could hear gunshots and sirens. Klaus let go of his power coughing painfully, the dead faded from both planes of existence. Rubbing his face, hands came away wet with blood. 

Birdboy stumbled away, clothes torn and bleeding profusely. The sparrow solider dropped beside Klaus holding the worst of deep gorges at his sides, attempting to slow the rate of blood loss. Klaus felt his breath and vision return, still feeling weak, he shrugged out of his jacket and pressed it against the wound. 

Bridboy groaned with the added pressure, lying in the grass and watching the sky. The gunshots sounded closer. 

“I think I need to get out of here.” Klaus said nervously, still pressing hard against the wound, blood gushing weakly from the sides, coating his bare arms and forearms. 

“You did a number on me. If you leave, I’ll die.” Birdboy swivelled a watery gaze on Klaus, “I will haunt you for eternity. I won’t be pleasant. Don’t let me die.” There was a deep gash on the side of his face, silently dripping to his ear. Klaus was reminded of the way the dead bleed, constantly and ceaselessly. 

“We need an ambulance.” Klaus nodded, keeping steady pressure on the wound. 

“M-my watch. Press the button on the side.”

“Why do you need the time?” Klaus asked nonplussed.

“Please.” Birdboy wheezed. 

Klaus released one hand pressing into the wound and grabbed the man’s wrist, flipping it over to press a nub on the watch. The watch didn’t activate as Klaus expected, in fact nothing happened. So he went back to keeping pressure on the wound. 

“It didn’t do anything.” Klaus replied, worried. The Birdboy’s eyes had started to drift closed. Klaus felt his own eyes dampen. Swallowing past a lump in his throat he started shaking his head. Dave was underneath his hands, blood flowing from his chest, eyes glazing over, blood pooling at the edge of his mouth, dripping over.

“No, no, no, no, no, no.” Klaus repeated, eyes unseeing, blood was drip, drip, dripping. A rough hand on his shoulder was shaking him, pulling him back. Klaus started screaming, fighting the hold, don’t let him die!

“I have him! I have him. It’s okay.” A female voice broke through the haze. 

Klaus startled, he was outside, it was the afternoon, sounds of a dying battle echoed in the distance, manicured grass was being crushed underneath him and there was the brunette woman from the Sparrow Academy hovering her hands over Birdboy, his jacket had been thrown aside. A gentle yellow-white light was being emitted from her hands, the bleeding stopped and skin stitching back together. 

Klaus looked up to see the Green Cube now shifted to look like the Sparrow Brunette holding tightly upper arms, having pulled him away. Glancing back at Number Four, the body was arching off the ground to flop back on the grass, breath flowing easier and eyes blinking open. The Sparrow Brunette helped Birdboy to a sitting position, they were gently conversing.

Green Cube suddenly let go of Klaus, jumping over to the two other Sparrows. As the cube grabbed both the members, black vans came screeching into view from both sides of the road, sirens blazing. With a blink all the Sparrows disappeared, and Klaus was left alone sitting on the sidewalk, watching government agents in tactical gear with large submachine guns leap out of the vehicles. The weapons all trained on Klaus, weakly he raised both bloody arms trembling from the strain.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Do we trust the secret government? 
> 
> Depends if it is run by a time-traveling demagogue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was so hard to write. Sentences did not want to be written.

Klaus mostly dozed through the trip to the government facility. 

Without any resistance they had cuffed his hands, frisked his clothing (removing his knife) and bundled him into the van. Multiple agents sat in the back with him, guns carefully pointed at his head. Without much else to do and feeling crippling enervation, Klaus huddled into a ball and rested a sore head on the dividing wall between the back cargo hold and the driver’s side of the van. 

Klaus would need all his energy to get out of this situation and could only hope his siblings, wherever they were, knew and cared enough to retrieve him. Unless, worst case scenario, they were all captured in some way, either by the government or by the Sparrows. 

The government agents looked eerily similar to the Temp Commission soldiers but instead of red goggles and gas masks, they wore black chunky sunglass eyewear with helmets connected to headsets, dark brown cameo outfits with chunky black watches. There weren’t any windows in the back of the van, and they were travelling for hours before Klaus stirred.

“Can I get some water?” Klaus asked, blinking blearily, realising some of his tremors and the slight pounding in his head was due to forgetting basic bodily needs.  
The soldiers glanced at each other but didn’t respond. Klaus’s stomach decided to engage in the conversation with a rumbling groan. 

“I might not make it to wherever you’re taking me.” Klaus grumbled annoyed, sitting a bit straighter, trying to stretch his arms which were now aching from being locked behind his back for hours. The ghosts were hazy, too tired to see them properly but from what he could tell almost all of them were dead due to a single shot to the back of the head. 

The soldiers didn’t respond and Klaus sighed irritated. Placed his head back against the wall and let himself drift again. 

The next time he awoke properly a solider was pulling him out of the back of the van. Klaus stumbled out following the rough yank on his arm, legs decided they weren’t up to the task of performing, buckled on the concrete floor outside the van. Klaus felt bony knees bruise on impact and one shoulder bearing the rest of his weight as the solider gripped tight. 

“Oww, ow, ow.” Klaus mumbled as he got feet underneath and stood upright. 

It was an underground parking lot, concrete floor and flickering dull fluorescent lighting. A heavy metal roller door had slid closed behind the vehicle, effectively trapping everyone in the cavernous garage. There were a few large service lifts at one end of the lot and a few doors leading to unknown areas. They marched to one of the service lifts, submachine guns still trained on Klaus. 

The lifts led them to a carpeted hallway with blackened screens and doors to either side of the corridor. Fluorescent lighting being the sole provider of illumination, no windows were present. Klaus wondered if that was because they were underground or whether all the windows were on the other sides of the doors. 

As they walked down the corridor, Klaus rubbed his fingers together allowing dried blood to flake off onto the floor, like some twisted version of breadcrumbs. They shoved him into a fancy office, fire roaring in a fireplace, polished wooden flooring, paintings adoring the walls, brass and gold decorations, plush chairs and an overly large ornamental wooden table. No windows. Looking closer, Klaus realised it was an imitation of a fireplace, there was a screen playing a video of wood and fire. 

They all stood facing the empty table with the high-backed chair. Rough fingers gripped Klaus roughly to keep him standing. Clicking of heels forewarned Klaus that someone else had entered the room, he didn’t bother angling his head around to look and as he guessed, they walked around the table to sit on the chair facing everyone. 

The ghosts were silent, eyes downcast, they flickered in and out of his sight. 

She was an older woman, probably hitting her eighties and while still in great shape for her age, she had bulky metal plate covering her entire torso, reminding Klaus of a robot. It was well incorporated into the tight-fitting business jacket with large gold buckles and dark trimming paired with a tight pencil skirt. Long silver curls falling softly over one shoulder. Klaus thought her face looked very familiar but couldn’t place it. 

A man of fifty or so had walked in with her and was now standing to her right, behind the chair, his gaze was weak, looking at the floor. 

“And the prodigal children return.” She said and clapped her hands, dark gloves muffled the sound a touch. “Uncuff him.” She ordered the solider still currently holding Klaus up. 

Aching shoulders finally released its pressure, sending searing burning pain across Klaus’s entire arms, fingers numbing. Bringing his hands in front, he looked at blood encrusted arms, awkwardly rubbing them on his pants, both to get rid of the blood and bring back feeling into them. 

“Just so there’s no funny business young man. Have a look at the screen.” The lady said, her voice both bored and maliciously amused at the same time. Klaus looked up to the screen on the wall to her left and tried not to react. Luther was on screen, shirtless, huge arms and legs bound in large metal manacles tethered to the wall, standing in a bare room. “With one button I can make his entire experience hell. All you need to do is behave and your ape brother gets to keep all his gorilla appendages.” The lady’s old and cruel eyes were sharp and seemed satisfied with whatever she was seeing in Klaus. 

Klaus for his part was glaring, too drained to do anything anyway. 

“Can I sit down?” Klaus asked not bothering to wait for an answer to scoot into one of the plush chairs, a minor act of rebellion. The action left him a bit woozy, taking a lot of the aggression out of the act. “You know me it seems, who are you and what do you want?”

“Call me the Controller. You are our guest at the Bureau of Time and Oddities and will be working with our research division for the foreseeable future. It seems the most useless of the Umbrella Academy may have the greatest potential.” 

Echoing dear old daddy Hargreeves, it sent shivers of disgust, shame and fear straight down Klaus’s spine. 

“Oh,” Klaus said softly, familiarity morphing into recognition. “Oh! You’re Diego’s girlfriend’s mum.” 

“Emancipated daughter.”

“You cut her head off?” Klaus asked horrified. 

“Emancipated not decapitated!” The Controller replied, slamming her hand on the table, shifting papers around.

“What’s the difference?” Klaus asked suspiciously. 

“What’s the differ… is there a point to this?” 

“Didn’t… didn’t you get like shot up with a billion bullets.” Klaus asked, vividly remembering her brutal death, only days ago, clearly looking like it was centuries ago for this version of the Handler. 

“It didn’t stick. You’re here to make sure it never sticks.” The Controller’s fingers were sliding over the top of the wooden table, smiling like a shark. 

“Mmm.” Klaus took a deep breath letting his eyes flutter closed for a second, opened them to stare at the lady. “Even if I was immortal and that’s a big if. Seems like you’re all chasing a red Hermes.” 

“Red Herring.” The Controller interrupted. 

“What’s that?” 

“A Red Herring, a misdirection.” 

“Why would you want that?” 

“No. That’s…never mind.” The Controller huffed irritated, eyeing the door. 

“Are you expecting to bottle it into an injection? Suck it out of me? You can’t do anything with my power.” Klaus shrugged, foot tapping nervously on the floor.  


“Well now, that would be for greater minds than yourself to figure out. Just do what you are good at. Sit, be pretty and let others poke you. Just remember, try anything and King Kong gets grilled.” The Controller stated callously. 

“Look maybe we could come to some other arrangement? How about Sparrow Academy insider information?” Klaus suddenly moved to splay his hands on the table, only getting a second standing over the table before he was yanked back abrasively by the back of his shirt onto the seat by one of the soldiers. 

“You don’t have any other value pretty-boy.” The Controller replied with finality. 

Ouch. 

With a flourish, clearly having finished with the conversation, briskly got up, smoothed down her skirt and walked out the door, the older gentleman at her heels. Klaus watched them leave, eyes flicking to the screen once they had left. Luther was angrily yelling and tugging on his restraints; the screen provided no sound and Klaus couldn’t tell what he was saying. 

A heavy hand on his shoulder pulled his attention away from his brother. Manhandling him back to standing, the soldiers led him down more corridors. Still uncuffed, Klaus fingered the stolen pen in his jean pocket. 

Klaus was finally left alone in a small cell-like room. The walls were clinically white with a dull fluorescent light on the room, there was a small plastic sink jutting from one wall which had a plastic desk right next to it, on the side a single bed was crammed. At the back, a half wall led to a toilet and shower. The entire room was claustrophobically small. Apart from the door which he entered there seemed to be no other exits or windows. 

Turning on the tap at the sink provided some relief in being able to wash his hands and dunk his head to get a drink. Klaus couldn’t see any obvious cameras but that didn’t mean much, it was likely he was being constantly monitored. There wasn’t anything stimulating in the room, even the mattress seemed to be attached to the plastic base. 

No metal elements, screws, nails or rivet in sight. 

Klaus was used to being hungry, usually chemical assistances diminished or outright disrupted the feeling. Klaus was not used to being nauseatingly starving and sober. The feeling of his stomach acids trying to burn their way to the outside world had him doubled over and practicing deep breathing. Dropping onto the bed, curling into a foetal position facing the wall, Klaus tried sleeping. 

Grasping, screaming, the humidity and the acid, fingernails scratching through ruptured chest muscles, lava pouring from torn veins to burn across broken bones. Klaus shot up gasping, shrieks caught torturously in his throat. The fluorescent lights flickered ominously, it felt like the room was shaking. Sitting up, he tried to blink away the disorientation. 

Silence. Klaus scrubbed his face, drank some more water, used the bathroom and sat on the bed to wait. 

Klaus wasn’t surprised when Darren the government solider opened the door, due to the ghost phasing through the walls in a pile of broken limbs and inconsolable cries. Klaus’s fingers wrapped tightly on the bedspread involuntarily, eyes narrowed as the probable murderer walked into the room. 

“Well, pity to see you so soon.” Klaus said lightly, voice breathy and high, eyes shifting to see if there was anyone else behind. 

“Food.” A brown bag was placed on the desk as Darren leaned on the open doorway, watching hawk eyed. The ghosts attempted to grasp the soldier’s body, arms slipping harmlessly through, Klaus flinched, many of the ghosts had had their eyes gouged out. 

Klaus did not move towards the food, hunger and nausea battling for victory. 

“Eat it, you have five minutes then we’re leaving.” Darren said annoyed. The ghosts cried out every time Darren spoke, responding with incomprehensible discord.

“No thanks,” Klaus swallowed nervously, tuning out the ghosts. “Is Dave with you?” 

“Fine, starve. Let’s go.” 

“Ah, no. I’d rather not.” Klaus laughed, pushing back towards the wall. 

“I wasn’t asking.” Darren grunted. 

Heavy boots thumped as the man made his way to the bed. Klaus jumped up before getting cornered and tried to twist past the solider. A tight hand on his upper arm stopped the escape attempt. Instincts kicking in, Klaus twisted in the grip jerking his free arm up to uppercut his captor, forgetting for a moment his shackled and vulnerable brother. Klaus felt his fist impact against the jaw, clearly catching Darren off guard. 

Retribution was swift and painful. Darren’s grip clenched further making Klaus squeak. Darren leveraged the hold to slam Klaus against the sink, hip smashing painfully on the protruding fixture and followed by a fist splintering his side, immediately his vision dimmed, black spots and blurred room. 

Klaus dropped soundlessly to his knees, muscle control deserting. A hand on his neck dragged him back to his feet, Klaus scrabbled at the hands on his neck, airflow completely gone. 

“Try that again and I will find the most painful way to kill your pet gorilla.” Darren growled, foul breath hissing over his ear. Klaus vision was mostly blurred darkness, so he couldn’t see what expression the man might have been making, but he could guess. 

Klaus tried nodding but he was losing consciousness fast. 

Suddenly he could breathe again, albeit painfully. Darren dragged him out of the room more aggressively than necessary considering Klaus was mostly a gasping, stumbling and blind wreck. Keeping one arm wrapped around his midsection, certain his ribs were broken again, blinked back his vision. Wheezing, he stumbled along with the murder-fanatic through blank corridors to a large room. 

The room looked a bit like a gym, with a dentist/ medical/ torture chair to one side. Monitors, wires and other equipment sitting with the chair. Apart from the gym and medical equipment, there was a small lap pool with a cover and a short laneway with lines. The walls were lined with horrifying gadgets, Klaus had no idea what they were for. The room was full of white lab coated people and maybe ghosts, Klaus couldn’t tell a difference, they were all wearing face masks and safety goggles. 

This was bad. 

This was really bad. 

Darren pushed him onto the chair. Fine tremors zipped through Klaus, shooting pain followed closely behind. No time was wasted in strapping wrists, ankles and neck to the chair. A screen flicked on, aligned with his vision, his confined brother on display and the threat evident. 

“What are you going to do?” Klaus asked, voice high and thready. 

Darren grabbed his hair, angling his head so they were face to face, the smile was vicious. “Science.” he guffawed. 

A mask was fitted over his nose and mouth and Klaus faded with every puff of air. 

The next time Klaus opened his eyes he was lying in a lake, the shallow water lapping around him. Sitting up he noticed the water was room temperature, there wasn’t any cold and there wasn’t any pain. The lake was sitting in the middle of a forest, dirt path leading away from the lake to the beyond. The colours were muted, blues and blacks, it was the middle of the night. 

Klaus got up and stretched, letting the water drip from his clothes as he walked out of the water to the dirt path, everything was lighted by a muted directionless light, looking up revealed no stars or moon in the night sky. This was death or something along that vein, if he concentrated, he could feel the otherworldliness of the place. This was not the sunny place he had been before, there was something much more subdued or neutral about this place.

With nothing else to do, he followed the path. It took him through the dark forest until he was standing outside a mansion. There were no lights in the driveway or windows. It stood dark against a dark background, edges blurring away in the gloom. 

Klaus walked to the double doors at the front of the mansion, there was a large brass knocker in the shape of a skull. Klaus wondered if the imagery was a bit on the nose all things considered. Touching the muntin the knocker was adhered to; Klaus felt a pull. It started as a niggle in the back of his head until his fingers were numb from the feeling. 

Suddenly the ground beneath him shimmered and he was falling. 

Klaus slammed into his own body like a sledgehammer fragmenting concrete. His eyes shot open, the world snapping to sharp focus. The mask had been removed from his face and he gasped a deep breath of air. 

“Welcome back. What’s your name and age?” a voice drifted to range. Klaus looked at the lab technician holding a notepad that had spoken. 

“My name is government science project, and my age is up for debate.” Klaus croaked through a dry throat in response, watching another technician draw blood from his elbow. The monitors were all lighted up, blinking, humming and spitting out paper. 

A straw was brought to his lips and Klaus sipped it warily, it tasted of water. 

“What did you do?” Klaus asked, terrified of the possibility he had no control about what was being done to him nor even the knowledge if it, if he was getting knocked out. 

“We’re starting with the brain and body response. What is the cause of immortality, is it a response to the death of your body or your brain? We have so much to test.” Another scientist muttered excitedly. 

His brain and body? What the hell did that mean. Klaus looked around for a ghost and found a technician with a bloodied skull and directed his question to it.

“What did they do?” Klaus asked. 

“You can see me?” The ghost asked excitedly, “they stopped your heart to see what would happen but kept the blood flow to your brain. You had a seizure, glowed blue and then restarted your heart. My assumption is they will stop the electrical signals in your brain next. Revolutionary really.” The ghost replied, hovering over the scientist that had mumbled before. “Hey, could you tell-”

Klaus tuned out the ghost with well-practiced selective hearing. 

Oh, dear purgatory. 

“I just told you,” The scientist turned to Klaus frowning, not hearing their dead colleague’s response. 

“Yeah. I’m the only test subject you have. I think you should probably give me a break. If my powers stop working, you’re just left with a corpse. I’m starving, can we get back to this tomorrow?” Klaus asked sweetly, smiling as genuinely as possible with the underlying urge to kick the scientist. 

“We want you in full health and you’ve been brought to us…damaged.” The scientist replied eyebrows furrowed, eyes dropping to survey his subject. “I’ll get the service personnel. We reconvene in 4 hours.” 

Different soldiers dragged him back to his cell, dropped him on the bed and dropped another bag of food on the desk, then left him alone.

Klaus panicked. 

Upending the bag on the table found a sandwich and a bottle of orange juice. The bag from the morning had been taken away. Klaus choked down the juice and sandwich, leaving him with an empty plastic bottle and paper wrapping, with his pen in his pocket and the clothes on his body that was everything he could potentially use to escape, get his brother and blow the joint. 

Klaus wracked his memory trying to hone on child superhero classes, did dear old pops teach them how to escape hostage situations with plastic bottles and pens? Klaus turned to the front door and dropped to his knees checking the lock. Twisting the cap of the pen, he tried using the thin plastic tip of the cap and the pen tube together pushed into the lock. Klaus rested his head on the door frame, listening intently as he carefully twisted the tools in the delicate lock. The metals shifted with the pressure until there was a pop. Klaus sat back and swallowed. 

It worked. Did that seriously work? There were guards everywhere and Klaus didn’t want to run into Darren ever again in his possibly short or horrendously long life. Klaus reassembled the pen and shoved it in his underwear. Pocketing the paper wrapping and holding the plastic bottle like a weapon, he opened his cell door a sliver, quietly. 

Peeking out, he could see the back of a guard. Klaus sat back breathing hard, dropped the bottle, ribs shooting bolts of pain with every breath. Klaus was a better physical combatant when he could take an enemy by surprise. If it came down to physical power, he was most likely not going to win. However, in his current state even a surprise round might find him on the losing side. 

Drawing a breath and numbing his brain to all pain signals, he pulled the door open silently and wrapped an elbow around the guard’s neck in a figure-four hold, dragging him back into the room. The umbrella academy siblings had practiced this specific hold thousands of times during training. Klaus had tried to overwrite those memories with the much more fun erotic asphyxiation version. A therapist would have something to say about that. The guard struggled, Klaus wrapped his legs around the man, pressing as hard as he could on the carotid arteries. 

Pass out! Pass out already!

The guard fell to his knees, jerking in his hold. Klaus side eyed the open door and prayed no other guard walked by. Finally, the guard tipped forward, crashing onto the floor with a thwack and Klaus winced, hoping he hadn’t accidently broken the guard’s nose. 

Klaus let go and rolled the guard over carefully, quickly pressing his fingers to his pulse. It was still beating. Klaus didn’t have long, people rarely stayed down for longer than a minute when they passed out and if they did, it would mean irreversible damage. 

Quickly he closed the door and frisked the guard, grabbing the utility belt with a taser, knife, gun, baton, torch and thankfully handcuffs. After removing the jacket, he dragged the body to the bathroom, ribs screaming with every jostle, cuffing the man to the sink pipe. Breathing heavily and sweating profusely, he cut strips off the guard’s shirt and made a gag to tie around his captive’s face. Klaus paused and checked the man’s nose, bruised and slightly bloody but not broken or too swollen. Klaus didn’t want him to accidently suffocate. 

It was done with just enough time before the guard was blinking awake. Klaus was already moving out of the bathroom and adjusting the jacket and belt to his body by the time the guard was thrashing around. Klaus listened to the noise from the bathroom but decided it was quiet enough he didn’t think anyone would come to check. 

Klaus had memorised the path to the Controller’s office and the death-gym. There was only one option Klaus was comfortable making and it was the one he had not already died in. Gun held limply by his side, arms hurting too much to wield higher, Klaus slid out of the cell and stood outside his door, waiting a moment. No alarms started blaring, no one was shouting down the corridor. Klaus counted his blessings and hobbled his way to the office. Surprisingly, the halls were empty.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dead and dead and dead...sigh.

The office was empty. Maybe the tween upstairs was giving Klaus a break. Relocking the door after entering, he dumped the pen in the trash by the desk, it was a twisted mess from its second unlocking.

Klaus was sweating, every cell in his body was aching for… something. For anything. Minute tremors twitching through his fingers, it felt like he had never been sober. Shaking his head, Klaus pushed away thoughts and feelings somewhere deep and broken, then poured metaphorical concrete over the lot. 

Making his way to the large ornamental wooden table he flung himself around to the side with all the important stuff and started flicking through the documents which were stacked neatly. The first file contained a brief memorandum to the Controller about a Televator schematic. Klaus paused on the document, eyes flicking on the attached blueprint and messy scrawl, eyebrows suddenly shooting up. Klaus knew that handwriting on the copied blueprints. That was dads’ shit-scratch. 

Something about teleportation travel via something that looked like an elevator. What on earth, that sounded ridiculous. Klaus pushed the document aside, he didn’t have time for nutty science, especially his dad’s brand of choleric science. 

The next memorandum contained something about a hotel. On the quote “dark side of the moon” unquote. Skimming the pages, more photocopied drawings and scrawls in his fathers handwriting. The old geezer was just as obsessed with the stupid moon as Luther. Hotel Oblivion. What a stupid name. 

Klaus huffed frustrated, pushing all the documents away in a messy pile. Corporate espionage was not the reason he was here. What would be useful, was a map of this stupid hellhole, the room number for his persecuted brother and the location of one David Katz. 

Klaus bit his lip then gathered all the documents on the table and shoved it in the paper shredder. All these documents pilfered from dear old daddy could have only come from a double agent. One particularly beautiful double agent. 

The drawers were filled with books, lots of physics and genetics. Lots of trinkets, probably creepy trophies. Notes about rubbish Klaus did not understand, there were something about time travel and eternal life in there. This was probably a treasure trove of secrets that would make dear Five wet his panties in pleasure. Klaus shoved anything loose into the paper shredder, gleeful in the chaos. 

Testing all sections of the desk his hands could reach, landed him a false bottom in a desk drawer, unsurprising and relatable from one secret stash addict to another. Ripping it open, a bronze key tumbled into Klaus’s hand. 

Okay. Where did this go? 

Nothing on the desk was screaming ‘key me’. Klaus whirled around, looking about the room. Fake fireplace, huge screen, pot plants and bookshelf. The boss-lady looked theatrical enough to conceal a covert door in the bookshelf. Prodding books and flinging them off the shelf yielded nothing, well except the joy of trashing a stuffy office much too reminiscent of the room his father spent all his time. 

Klaus turned to the fake fireplace. It was a stupid thing to have, did it produce any heat? Dropping to his knees and pushing aside the grate he pulled away the fake screen. A small crawl space sat behind, so Klaus crawled in. Turning on the flashlight from the utility belt he popped it into his mouth and looked forward. Bingo. A key slot. 

Turning the key allowed the back wall to swing open, so Klaus crawled to the other side and stood up. It was dark, passing the flashlight across the room, it was small and crammed with metal shelves which looked a lot like filing cabinets. 

The room also housed a briefcase in a glass box. A very familiar briefcase. Next to the box was a… coffin? Klaus stared at the box; it was the shape of a coffin. Creeping forward, Klaus looked at the heavy padlock keeping the coffin closed. It was a padlock with symbols on a turn pad, rather than a lock that required a key. Curiosity was killing him, it was probably some ancient mummy, but first he needed something useful to get him out of here.

Swinging the light back at the cabinet, he read the plaques quickly. Important personnel files! Klaus ripped open the drawers and rummaged through manilla folders to the letter K. Kab, Kad, Kam, Kan, Kar and finally Kat… Katz. David Joseph Katz. 

Name: David Joseph Katz  
Born: Wisconsin United States July 23, 1939  
Recruitment: A Sầu Valley, Vietnam January 01, 1969  
Termination: Completion of acquisition - Hargreeves property Klaus Hargreeves, Timeline Anomaly Number Four, powered human. 

“Oh, fuckity fuck. Okay new plan, save Dave.” Klaus mumbled rubbing his eyes hard and staring at the file in his hand, biting back angry tears. 

Klaus gazed at the box in the room. Maybe they were storing weapons in the coffin. Klaus shifted forward and touched the padlock and a heavy slam from inside the coffin made Klaus shriek and fall back, flashlight falling from his mouth and manilla folder bursting across the floor. 

Photos of Dave and candid snapshots of himself littered the floor. 

“Hello?” Klaus asked uncertainly, eyes traveling away from the gorgeous face of Dave to the coffin. 

“Let me out.” Came a muffled response, the sound was low and difficult to hear. 

“How do I open the lock?” Klaus queried while shoving papers into a pile, vaguely wondering if something in a coffin should not maybe stay in a coffin. 

“Turn the dials. I will tell you when to stop.” The thing in the box responded. 

“Okay,” Klaus picked up the flashlight and shuffled back to the coffin and started turning the first dial. “Err…what’s your name and how’d you end up in a coffin?” 

“Athan Cassius the third. Stop.” 

Klaus moved to the next dial. 

“I have not the memory of my circumstance. Stop.” 

Next dial. 

“What name do you go by? Stop.” 

Klaus paused and stared at the last dial. Well, it couldn’t possibly be worse than torturesome government agents planning to murder boyfriends while looking for immortality, could it? Klaus started turning the last dial. 

“I’m Klaus.” 

“Stop.” 

Pulling the lock away from the gold bracket Klaus pulled open the lid. Klaus swallowed and stood back, shining the light on a slim pale figure who pulled themselves up from the box. They were dressed in an impressively ironed long sleeved black buttoned shirt and black dress pants, hair spilled down to their waist, dead straight and completely black. Black eyes glittered from the pale face, slightly slanted perhaps from Asian-European ancestry. 

“Thank you.” Athan hissed, barely opening their mouth, heavily accented. 

“Yeah.” Klaus replied uncomfortable, hairs raising, he swallowed the feeling back down. 

Athan stepped out of the coffin and looked around, seemingly unphased by the oppressive darkness around them. 

“Do you know where you are?” Klaus questioned, moving back to the cabinets near the wall and flicking the light over the room, settling it on the stranger. 

“What age of man is it?” Athan asked, coming to stand by Klaus. 

“Not how someone of the 21st century would phrase that, but I have since learned time is a bitch. It’s 2019. We’re trapped in an American department of murder psychos or something. Place is run by a mad woman who was probably my brothers, plural, boss… or maybe girlfriend?” Klaus was watching the stranger; they had an eyebrow slightly raised and an intense gaze. “How long were you in that coffin?” 

“America in 2019.” They repeated “I have been in that coffin, perhaps, a hundred years?” Athan answered. 

Opening that coffin was sounding worse by the minute. 

“Personally I prefer naps under twelve hours. You look great for your age.” Klaus shivered, yep definitely physically no older than thirty…or twenty…or forty? 

“It was not voluntary.”

“Yeah, I don’t suppose you could just lock yourself in a coffin.” Klaus giggled nervously. 

“You have my deepest gratitude.” Athan looked directly towards the exit of the room, seemingly having no problem with the sheer darkness of the room. 

“Actually, instead of the gratitude can you help me free my brother, my boyfriend, these are two different people, and get us out of here?” Dropping down Klaus grabbed a photo and the paper with David’s bio. Passed the photo to Athan and folded the bio small, shoving it in his underwear. 

“The recompense was refraining from eating you.” Athan’s voice didn’t change modulation, they could have been talking about taxes. They flicked the photo to places unseen. 

“Vampire, sure. Why not.” Klaus tilted his neck to the side, “have at it and when you’re done, help me?” 

“You could die.” Athan answered while moving towards Klaus, fangs shining in the torch light. 

“Don’t worry about it, just do it quick.” Klaus grumbled as he felt freezing hands, one moved to hold his waist the other caressed his head. Suddenly piercing pain and Klaus tried to automatically jerk away from the mouth on his neck, but the freezing grip was immovable steel. 

Then waves upon waves of warmth radiated from the bite, travelling like a gentle ocean breeze through his veins. Transforming to electricity careening back to his fingertips and toes, exploding in bliss, everything was vibrating, colours dancing into geometric patterns across his vision until everything turned into white pleasure, building and building. 

Better than any drug Klaus had ever taken. 

Reality was a shock, cold and painful. Klaus could suddenly feel the tension in every muscle and bone in his body as Athan ripped their face away and coughed. Klaus fell heavily to the floor and groaned, shaking uncontrollably.

Klaus blinked away the flashing dots and looked at his crotch. Was that…

“Oh s-shit.” Klaus stammered, thanking all things alive that his pants were black. 

“You taste inordinately strange.” The vampire grunted, licking their thumb and cleaning their face of blood. A bit like a cat.

“Surprisingly not the first person to say that to me.” Klaus quipped, fanning his nether regions. “I’m not going to turn into a vampire now, am I?” Klaus asked snapping his attention back to the stranger, if Ben were here, he would have reminded Klaus to check before getting bitten. Or maybe stop him getting bitten at all. 

“No.”

“Good. Good to know.” Klaus struggled back up to his feet. “Will you help?” 

“Yes.” Athan finished straightening up, “I have unfinished business then I will extradite the gorilla man, the American solider and you.” 

“How do you…?” Klaus blinked and was suddenly staring at an empty room. “What?” Spinning around Klaus flashed the torch around, even checking the roof. “Hello?” He was alone. 

Did he just hallucinate all that? 

There were footsteps outside the small room, suddenly feeling rather claustrophobic Klaus crawled back out into the Controller’s office.

And promptly wished he hadn’t.

Darren was picking through the mess of books and papers on the floor, looking disgusted at the mess on the table. Two other guards were standing at attention, guns displayed prominently on their hips. Everyone was quick to snap their attention to Klaus crawling out from the fake fireplace, a pale trembling sweaty mess, torch in mouth. 

“They should collar and leash you.” Darren barked.

Klaus dropped the torch and wondered if there was any point going for the gun on his utility belt. He raised his hands in surrender instead. 

“I’d be into that. Just not with you.” Klaus retorted and promptly passed out. 

Blinking Klaus woke up in the death-gym, on his knees held up by a solider, blurry feet moving around. Loud yelling surrounding his pounding head. Vision sharpening, Klaus realised his head was hanging down, lifted to see his brother shackled, red faced veins bulging as Luther growled at the soldiers. No, he was barking at Darren. 

Klaus looked on with horror as Darren was holding a large Kukri, tapping it menacingly on Luther’s apprehended arm. 

“Don’t touch him.” Klaus attempted to yell, which was more of a squeaky bark. The effort had him doubled over coughing. 

“Ah you’re awake.” 

Klaus officially hated that voice. Darren moved to stand before Klaus, wrenching the sweaty head up so that Klaus was forced to look at the solider. Bringing the blade up so it sat on the pale cheek, Klaus kept stock still not wanting to inadvertently lose an eye or nose. 

“You’re a disgrace as a solider. When did the government dabble in the torture of innocent civilians?” Luther breaking the spell with his yell, edged with hysteria. 

“Well, you’re not innocent or civilians or even from this world. Right now, you’re in my world and I can do with you as I see fit.” Darren didn’t bother looking at Luther as he answered him, gaze steadfast on Klaus.

The cold metal moved off Klaus’s face, only lightly nicking the skin. Klaus was completely unprepared for the blade to swing back with fervent force and precision right through his upper left arm. It sliced cleanly like a hot knife through butter, the edge pin tip sharp. Klaus shrieked as his amputated arm fell to the floor beside his kneeled position. 

Luther was screaming as Klaus quieted, brain circumvented from proper function. Breath hiccupping, cold slamming through his chest as he looked at his motionless arm unbelieving. Blood was spluttering everywhere, clothes slick with it, pooling endlessly on the floor. Honestly how did he even have this much blood left, didn’t the vampire drink most of it? Klaus realised as he blinked sluggishly, he would probably die quickly through the combination of shock and blood loss. 

He hoped Luther didn’t freak out too much.

“I did say next time you pissed me off, the gorilla was getting grilled, right? I’ll just wait until you get back to start the show. Can you re-grow a limb?” Darren was laughing as he used the blade to tip Klaus chin up. 

Klaus blinked, at least he thought he blinked but he couldn’t see anything. Did the lights go off? Thoughts slipped away.

Gasping awake, Klaus jerked up and immediately thrust arms forward and could have cried in happiness as two arms stretched before him. Klaus looked around, ah, the lake. He was dead. Again. 

“Hey god, patron of the afterlife or whatever you are. Are you here? Is anyone here?” Klaus jumped up as he yelled into the muted world. No-one answered his call. 

With only one place to go, Klaus jogged to the foreboding mansion, enjoying the reprieve of a painless body. Ignoring the knocker, he pulled the door open and sauntered in. Large columns gleamed under torch light holding a vaulted ceiling with embossed mouldings bordering ornamental panelling. It had the effect of being ostentatious and absolutely unnecessary.

Lavish furniture decorated the floor space and an upscale cocktail bar rested close to the entrance. A bartender was wiping down the counter. 

“Hello, where am I?” Klaus asked taking a seat. The bar tender was young, hair messily wrapped in a bun atop her head, loose strands whipping around her face as she worked. 

“The Void.” She stated pointing to the framed poster behind her. The notice was split in three sections, the top banner simply stating: ‘choice’ with picture of fluffy clouds. The middle: ‘The Void. Please take a number and see one of our lawyers,’ background painted blue with arrows pointing both up and down to the other sections. The bottom: ‘reparation,’ written in white across a black background. 

“That’s rather kitsch and unimaginative isn’t it? The afterlife should consider re-branding. I’m Klaus, I need to talk to the boss.” Klaus thrust out his hand to the bartender, “nice to meet you.” 

“Yama, welcome to the Void. Tickets for lawyers can be found at the terminal next to the bar. Don’t know a boss. What’s your preferred drink?” Yama answered dryly, pulling together ingredients to make a drink.

“Cosmopolitan…” Klaus said watching as Yama shook the beverage, pour it, add an umbrella and slid over a pretty blush pink drink with a curled lemon rind on the rim. “Neat trick.” 

“Been working a long time Klaus.” Yama started making another drink. 

“I really need to speak to someone who runs the afterlife, I don’t have a lot of time.” Klaus said downing the drink in one go. 

“Odd statement to make, there isn’t any time here.” Yama replied as she swiped the empty glass away and slid a new drink in front of Klaus. 

“Earth time, mortal world time, I don’t have much of that time before I go back.” Klaus looked at the amber liquid in the tumbler, swiping a finger through the condensation. Feeling phantom pains through his left arm as he brought the drink up to his lips. 

“People don’t normally go back to life once they come to the afterlife.” Yama pulled out a board with tiny snacks from under the counter and placed it on the bench. 

“That’s why I need to see someone who can help me.” Klaus challenged, pushing the empty glass away. Another drink took its place. 

“We have lawyers, this facility while your case gets assessed and an elevator for your eventual departure.” Yama gently laid her hand over Klaus’s before he downed the next drink. Klaus blinked, realising he was starting to feel a touch dizzy. 

“An Elevator?” Klaus gripped the drink without really thinking about it, Yama removed her hand, dark eyes gauging. 

“Goes up.” Yama pointed up, “or goes down.” She flicked the upward pointing finger down. “You need a ticket.” A small sly smile graced her face. 

Klaus thought about this situation. If time did not exist here, then… was the original timeline Ben and Dave here as well? 

“You said there’s no time here. If someone died and came to the afterlife… but the timeline changed, and they were alive again. Do they disappear from here?” Klaus asked anxiously. 

“The afterlife doesn’t worry about the timeline of the mortal coil. What exists ends and what ends rests.” Yama pulled away Klaus’s untouched drink and swapped it with a bottle of water that she uncapped. 

That answered absolutely nothing. 

“If they ended up in, let’s just call upstairs heaven. Is a version of them still in heaven, even though they’re alive on earth as well?” Klaus knew the bartender wouldn’t answer. “Where’s the elevator up?” Klaus drank the water quickly and started eating the hors d'oeuvres. 

“You need a ticket. You should see one our lawyers.” Yama was leaning against the counter watching Klaus intently. 

“Why would you willingly add paperwork and governance to the afterlife?” Klaus mumbled through a mouthful of food. 

“This is your perception.” Yama smiled. 

“My perception?” Klaus asked, wiping the crumbs from his face. It made as much sense as anything else. “Where is the elevator?” 

“Past the holding rooms, end of the building. Just go straight.” Yama pointed down the dark corridor. 

“Thanks.” Klaus smiled back, standing and turning away. 

“You need a ticket!” Yama called out. 

“I think I’m an exception.” Klaus whispered as he ran down the corridor. 

The elevator was exactly as he imagined it would be, beautiful intricate gold metal designs curved in flamboyant patterns of thorned vines and flowers. It was as he imagined it because everything here was what he unconsciously thought purgatory would look like. 

“Ugh… I’m the one that’s kitsch.” Klaus mumbled annoyed, promising himself he would read more diverse books about the afterlife when he went back. 

Klaus pressed the call elevator button and the doors slid open with a pleasant ding. He stepped inside. There were no buttons inside the elevator. The doors gently slipped shut and the elevator remained stationary. 

“Go up.” Klaus said, turning on his heels and looking inside the gold metal box. “Move!” Klaus slammed a fist on the side wall. Still nothing happened. 

Klaus folded his legs underneath, sitting down and exhaling, he focused on his powers. How would powers of the dead work in the afterlife. Looking inwards he searched for the cold coil of decay that lingered on the edge of his sense. Opening his eyes Klaus realised he couldn’t find it. Gritting his teeth, he searched again, pulling on a mental muscle that flexed weakly. He knew where his powers usually were but in its stead was a throbbing gravity, completely different to the feel of his death powers. 

“What are you?” Klaus asked surprised. Klaus tore at the power until it ruptured and blasted out of his body and he screamed as the elevator shot up using a force pouring out of Klaus. The force slammed him flat on the floor of the elevator. Careening somewhere the elevator continued to hurtle upwards for a terrifying minute until everything was consumed in white. 

Klaus groaned, ears popping as he sat up and looked around. No longer in an elevator, Klaus was sitting in a fifty’s style lounge. Fluffy carpet underneath his bare fingers. Footsteps altered Klaus to turn his head to the opening of a hallway. 

Klaus blinked and stared. 

Dave stood barefoot, blinking back just as surprised. 

“Klaus…Klaus!” Dave yelled ecstatic, running over and scooping Klaus from the floor, wrapping warm arms around Klaus.


End file.
